Cruel and Unusual
by MissingEden
Summary: There's punishment. There's torture. And then there's this. Can love blossom behind closed doors? Or are they just going to kill each other? Draco/Harry.
1. Detainment

**Disclaimer**: Every time I tell people I'm J.K. Rowling, the shrinks up my dosage, so I guess I'm not her.

_(a/n__: Oh, and just when you thought you'd gotten rid of me…_

_Tada! Hello again, dear readers. It is I, scum of the earth K-san with a new and unwieldy venture into the twisted world of __fanfic__. Of course it's only twisted because I make it so, but good luck proving that in court._

_The Paranoid Android had major objections to this __fic__ and kept changing the font whenever I looked away long enough (I still do not know how this happened and it frightens me even now), but I have once again come out at least partially victorious against the motorized maniac that is my beloved Marvin._

_In other news, the set up of this story will most likely confuse the fuck out of you for this entire chapter and quite possibly the next one as well. I wanted to practice my first-person skills (having failed so epically the last time) and alternating POVs seemed like a fun idea. Or it did at four in the morning when I came up with it, anyway. _

_I'll also warn you that so far that this is the slowest-moving thing I've ever written in my __friggin__' life, so I don't know how long it'll be before any actual boy love goes down around here. Please forgive me.)_

* * *

Hour One: Detainment

* * *

"Detention, Potter." There's a surprise. I don't know what I did this time and I don't bother asking. As if the miserable bastard doesn't find a new excuse to give me one every other day anyway. If I'm within eyeshot of Severus Snape, I must be breaking a rule, and if I'm not, he'll make one up. Just being Harry Potter is enough of a reason. 

It's not my fault he had a crap childhood.

It's not my fault Dad and Sirius were "arrogant little berks" as kids.

It's not my fault and I don't feel the least bit sorry for the greasy git.

Bastard.

Ron's voice broke my train of thought. "What'd he come up with this time? No walking in the hallway unsupervised for more than 146 paces at a speed of less than four miles an hour?"

"Dunno. I wasn't listening. Did we lose any points?"

"Five." Hermione sounded unfazed. "Less than last time, at least."

"Terrific. I'll be sure and thank him later."It was going to be something disgusting again, I could feel it. It's never doing lines or cleaning desks with him, he's always got to have me up to my eyes in something slimy or sorting the souls of freshly killed kittens or whatever else he thinks will make me either cry or vomit. Preferably both, at the same time if he can manage it.

"Bastard." I don't know why, but I said it out loud this time. "Miserable sodding bastard…"

"Filthy language, Potter. But then I suppose it suits your company, doesn't it?"

If at all possible, Malfoy alternately disgusts and irritates me even more than Snape does.

On the one hand, Malfoy can't dock my house points for telling him to fuck off, I can punch him without being expelled (and one of these days…) and he's yet to give me a detention for being Harry Potter without a license.

On the other…

I really, really, really don't like him.

"Bugger off, Malfoy." More swearing, partly to emphasize the fact that I don't give a shit what he tells me to do, partly to distract the conceited little prat while I get my wand out.

But he doesn't get his. Doesn't even touch it. Just makes his usual friendly hand gesture and walks away.

Weird.

OoOoOo

"Detention, Malfoy."

Of course. Like half the class hasn't forgotten their bloody twelve inches of parchment without getting one, but somehow, astonishingly, _miraculously_, I'm the one that ancient hag gives a detention to.

Of course.

It's not my fault my family's got money.

It's not my fault she doesn't know the difference between confidence and egotism.

It's not my fault. I'm just lucky.

"I'm telling Father about this." I say it without thinking and with no intention of actually doing it, because Merlin knows the man couldn't care less about what I do with my time as long as I'm not wasting any of his, and the over-sized lumps of humanity on either side of me nod obediently even though they've got no idea what I'm talking about and don't especially care. Not exactly surprising; they're more like lackeys than friends and all three of us know it.

Crabbe grunts agreeably.

Goyle snorts agreeably.

God, I hate them.

"Bastard."

Ah. Relief. I always know where I am with Potter; namely somewhere where I can hex his stupid face off and then breathe easier knowing I've let off whatever steam was building up that day.

"Miserable sodding bastard…"

"Filthy language, Potter. But then I suppose it suits your company, doesn't it?" Once again the things coming out of my mouth bear no resemblance to what I actually think. Truthfully I don't give a damn whether Weasley and Granger are Mudbloods or Blood Traitors or scum or filth or whatever else people as foul as my idiot father want to call them, but it's just easier to say what they expect you to than to make a scene about people you don't even like.

That, and Potter _hates_ it when you insult his friends.

"Bugger off, Malfoy."

Good. Nice to get a rise out of him. Better than getting one out of anyone else, for some reason. I've been like that as long as I can remember, testing to see if I can ever annoy people enough for them to forget I'm a Malfoy with the bloodline and social standing and, lest we forget, the _money_ to crush them faster and harder than they'd previously thought possible, and get them to treat me like I deserve to be treated.

I deserve to be treated like an arsehole because I _am_ an arsehole. But I'm an arsehole with money so nobody cares.

But Potter…Potter is oh so very different. Six years ago, the minute we met, he saw me for the arrogant little bastard I was and called me on it like he didn't care who he was dealing with. Because he _didn't_ care who he was dealing with. Of course I hated him immediately, prancing about with his classless little friends, saving the wizarding world and looking every inch the nauseating hero, but there was and is something inarguably intriguing about that kind of dauntless stupidity.

And that was how I saw him now, half with loathing and half with morbid fascination, and neither one visible behind the smirking conceit written onto my face since conception.

Then I made a mistake.

I looked at him.

And Potter has those eyes…

Not just any eyes, obviously, everybody's got those. I've got my own pale gray ones that that repulsive cow Pansy likes to tell me are like "deep loving pools of" something so vomit-inducingly ridiculous I refuse to repeat any more of it, but Potter…

Eyes shouldn't look like that. They're too green, too deep, too sad…too distracting, too expressive, too beautiful…

It's annoying.

So annoying I didn't even remember I was supposed to be trying to come as close to killing him as was technically legal.

So annoying I very nearly forgot give him a filthy look, gesticulate rudely, and swagger off with cold dignity to spend more suicide-provoking time with the people Father tells me are my friends.

Weird.

OoOoOo

Detention. Not a strange idea to either of them, but presently neither had the faintest idea of how strange their day was going to get.

They took their separate ways as usual, Harry to Gryffindor tower, Draco to the dungeons, with less than an hour between them and their respective detainments.

"I'll never get why you leave early for this crap," said Ron in a mystified tone.

"The sooner I get there, the sooner he's got to let me leave," Harry answered with reasoned annoyance. "If I want to get back some time this decade I might as well go now."

The entire trip down to the dungeons was one long stream of silent obscenities directed at a certain potions master, but they were nothing compared to the level of copious mental swearing that took place when he actually reached his destination.

Snape wasn't in his office.

He wasn't anywhere near it.

"Bugger," Harry said very loudly.

Perpetually astounded at his ability to get lost in a school he'd attended for six years, Harry wandered the alarmingly silent corridors for another ten minutes before he heard a single noise.

A classroom, finally, albeit an abandoned one he'd never actually been in, but a classroom at least.

The only one that seemed to be lit. The only one that seemed to be occupied.

He opened the door.

He closed it again.

"Malfoy," said Harry.

"Potter," said Draco.

_What the _hell_ is going on?_ thought the both of them.

_

* * *

(a__ further a/n: __Yay__! Author's notes! Everyone's favorite part!_

_Or possibly the part everyone skips reading. _

_Going into a new __fic__, I always like to consider the ingredients that created the horrifying confectionary item I'm presently ramming down my readers' throats. Here the recipe reads something like:_

_--Take one __yaoi__ obsessed ball of raging estrogen. Age seventeen years in the Boston area under the unhealthy influence of a crazed Irishwoman._

_--Carefully expose__ to a fourteen hour session of "24" reruns with said Irishwoman's even more unhealthy (mentally, at least) mother._

_--Combine gently with the firm belief that if two attractive people are left in a small enough area for an adequate period of time, sex will eventually happen._

_--Mix with one part over-confidence brought on by ego-stroking reviews and 14,833 parts the usual neurotic lack of self-esteem._

_--Let stand for exactly two hours, thirty-eight minutes, and eleven seconds._

_--Consume at your own risk._

_Yeah, that's about right._

_On the note of my intense insecurity, do you think Harry and Draco's voices are distinct enough or do they read too much alike? I wanted it to be obvious whose point of view it was from by the way they talked but I don't know if I quite managed it…_

_Eh. It's probably not important._

_P.S._

_Next time, r__emind me to write shorter author's notes, please.)_


	2. Entrapment

**Disclaimer**: I would like some of whatever drug gives you the idea that J.K. wrote this.

_(a/n__: Ah, my dear readers! Welcome once more to the dark den of my internets…it is cold in here. Perhaps you should have brought a sweater._

_Anyhow, my plans for this __fic__ have as usual taken strange and irritating turns. My original concept was to have each chapter take place in real time (like an episode of 24, get it?) but in about five seconds I realized I do not __posess__ whatever writing ability would allow one to accomplish such a format. So instead the "hours" will serve only to inform you of how long they've been sitting around together. Though that'll probably stop being workable as well and I will look quite foolish._

_Ah well. The best laid plans of mice and men…often involve flipcharts._

_Hmm. I think I've mixed my metaphors again.)_

* * *

Hour Two: Entrapment

* * *

No one said he was going to be here. 

We stared at each other for about a year and a half without saying a single word, just him looking at me and me looking at him and both of us trying to work out just what the hell we were doing in the same room.

"I…I've got detention here." The words came out funny, like they didn't want to come out at all. The way he'd been looking at me made it hard to think. The short moment of pure shock, no guards, no glares, the first expression of genuine emotion I'd ever seen on that haughty idiot face of his. It made him look different. Not good or anything, just…different.

He flicked his disturbingly blond hair like a twelve-old-girl and gave me a look meant to indicate that I was wasting his precious time.

Which meant he was just as confused as I was.

"That miserable prune McGonagall gave me one as well."

"Her office is upstairs."

"Severus's is a floor down."

"Hmm."

Complete silence.

"I'm leaving."

"Don't let me keep you."

I glared at him. I couldn't help it. Glaring at Malfoy is a given. I can't look at him and _not_ glare.

But this time, it was partially to see if…

Ah.

His hand suddenly tightened around the part of his tie he'd been fiddling with while he talked.

Just for a second, his breathing seemed to stop.

I stared at him until he looked away, which wasn't long, feeling even more confused than before.

"It's…er…warm in here…isn't it…" He was staring at a spot some six feet to the side of my head as he spoke, his left hand pulling uncomfortably at his shirttail, his right clenched into a bone-crunching fist drained of all color.

And I could have sworn he was blushing.

OoOoOo

No one said he was going to be here. I wasn't prepared.

His eyes bored into mine for what felt like a century with an intensity I couldn't match to save my life

_Stop._

_Bloody._

_Staring at me like that._

But he didn't stop. He just went on looking at me like I was the first person he'd ever laid eyes on, saying words I couldn't hear, being answered with sentences I didn't even notice were coming out of my mouth.

"I'm leaving."

Thank god. I'd have done anything to get him out of that room and put a few thick castle walls worth of distance between us while he was still so endearingly oblivious to the fact that I hadn't breathed at any point in the last two minutes.

There was no reason for him to know that my stomach was currently engaged in monumental warfare with my heart, which was pulsing painfully in my chest in a thoroughly nauseating way. He didn't need to know, he didn't _want_ to know, and I sure as hell wasn't going to let him find out.

"Don't let me keep you." I found myself regretting the words instantly, as they prompted a second round of Harry Potter's Patented Death Glare.

Part of the problem with being looked at by Potter is the realization that you've never actually been looked at properly in your life. Not _really_ looked at, looked at by eyes that seem to swallow the whole of your skin and muscles and blood and bones until there's nothing to stare at but your soul. Stupid as it sounds, that's exactly what it felt like.

And there's nothing worse than having someone see you for exactly what you are and knowing how much they hate what they're looking at.

"It's…er…warm in here…isn't it…" Not really much of an excuse, but at this point I was lucky to be forming words at all.

Somehow I get the terrible feeling he knows exactly what he's doing.

OoOoOo

"Look, Potter—"

"Er, Malfoy—"

"—no one said you were going to be here," they finished in unison.

There they were. No getting around it; both had spent too many long moments frozen to the floor, motionless in complete confusion, arguments or attacks postponed and the farthest thing from either of their minds.

Of course you'd never get them to admit that that meant anything, and it was possible that even they were unaware that it did.

The powerful urge to look at something, _anything_ else surged through the room. Harry looked at the floor. Draco looked at the ceiling. More long silent seconds passed.

"There's no way they'd give us detention together. You're in the wrong place."

"And you aren't? Last I checked this wasn't Severus's office."

"It's not McGonagall's either."

They were each more likely to swallow their wands than admit to the other they'd gotten lost.

Harry glared experimentally at Draco once again, but he was already staring fixedly at his shoes, not to be taken in.

"Have you got some sort of problem with looking people in the eyes, Malfoy?" Harry asked moodily, blaming his irritation on the simple fact that he was within a hundred yards of Draco Malfoy.

"Not people. Just you."

There was a silence as loud as a commercial jet taking off in your eardrum and a pause as long as a line at the DMV.

Draco's hand flew to his mouth as he realized what he'd just said and then back down again as he realized how stupid that made him look.

Harry tried to make a sentence in response, but only ended up with a mouth full of blood and a sore tongue as the words "What the hell is that meant to mean?" got caught some where in the vicinity of his teeth.

Draco wanted to throw up. Or die. Or possibly both.

"Er." Pause. Harry got no further.

"Um." Pause. Draco couldn't come up with another word.

"I think I'll just…go now."

"…right…"

Harry sighed and turned away with a strange and unexplained reluctance he pushed instantly aside and immediately tried to forget he'd felt at all, and Draco suddenly found the ceiling tiles to be the single most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.

He turned the doorknob.

He twisted it to the right.

He twisted to the left.

"Malfoy," Harry said slowly and without turning around, "why is this door locked?"

_

* * *

(a__ further a/n: I know what you're thinking._

_"Did I just read an entire chapter of nothing but two people in a locked room staring at each other?"_

_Yes. Yes you did.)_


	3. Confinement

**Disclaimer**: If you run into the real J.K., ask her if she knows any more words that end in "ment".

_(a/n: You are in luck, dear readers, for I have thankfully written a number of chapters in advance, so even though I had no time at all to write one, a chapter is here for you nevertheless. Isn't that nice?_

_Why did have no time, I shall pretend you have asked? So nice of you to wonder. I have been pursuing many a goal in my non-fic-writing time…for example, today I aimed to learn to sing opera in a French accent (fail), not fall off the stage while rehearsing my school play (double fail), and either a) actually get around to beta-ing the things I have told people I will beta or b) stop telling people I will beta things (epic fail). _

_Okay, screw goals. I'm gonna go back to perusing my reviewers' fics now. And then cry a little because a lot of you are way better writers than me.)_

* * *

Hour Three: Confinement

* * *

I wondered when he was going to tell me to shut up. 

"Alohamora. Alohamora! ALOHAMORA!"

"If it was going to open, think it would have one of the last thirty times you did that, Potter."

His hair fell forward into his eyes, keeping them from locking onto mine. "Have you got a better idea?"

"Yes. Unfortunately it rather involves being on the other side of that door."

I didn't even bother looking for words to tell him what an idiot he was.

"Shut up, Malfoy. Can you get the door open or not?"

You'd have thought I was a basilisk with him avoiding my eyes like that. "If I could, I'd be on the other side of the castle by now."

He was leaning up against the door, smirking disinterestedly like this sort of thing happened to him all the time.

"You're staring, Potter."

"How can you tell? You're looking at the floor."

The smug smile flickered slightly.

"Sorry you're so used to everyone being interested in you, Potter, but _I'm_ not. And right now you're boring me."

In hindsight, punching him was probably a bad idea. But he was _really_ annoying me.

"Wha—"

His fingers closed around my wrist before my fist could make it to his face, but when I pulled back he didn't let go.

"Did you just try and hit me, Potter?"

"Let go of my arm!"

He was laughing.

"Let go!" I threw up my other arm. I must be complete at crap at fighting, because he hardly had to move to catch that one too. "Malfoy, let go of me right now or I'll—"

He gripped my arms harder; I could feel bruises forming under the pressure of his fingers. "What? What do you think you can do about it?"

I've never been seriously scared of Malfoy before or since, but just then there was something in his eyes that made me want to crawl out of my skin and hide under one of the desks.

"I—"

His hands were off me in one quick movement, but before I could take a step they were back, one at the small of my back to stop me going anywhere, the other knotted into my hair, pulling my head back in a way that wasn't exactly painful but still scared the hell out of me.

Every sense told me this was the single most horrifying thing I'd ever experienced.

The sound of his breathing, heavier than usual for some reason.

The sight of his eyes, entirely too close to mine.

The smell of his hair as it brushed against my face.

The taste of his tongue sliding unceremoniously into my mouth, harsh and aggressive and completely uninvited.

And the horrible feeling of not wanting him to stop…

"Shut up, Potter," he said, and shoved me away.

OoOoOo

I swear it was just to shut him up.

He hadn't closed that stupid mouth of his for more than a minute and a half since we got locked in, and now he was shouting the exact same thing over and over despite the clear evidence that it was having absolutely no effect on the situation.

"ALOHAMORA!"

Brilliant. Spells have been known to spontaneously start working after the fortieth time you try them.

When he asks questions, I address my answers to the floor because eye contact has not exactly been my friend of late.

"Can you get the door open or not?"

Oh yes. Because that's what I do with my free time. I'm the Master of Unlocking.

"If I could, I'd be on the other side of the castle by now."

I swear if he keeps looking at me I'm going to walk over there and gouge his eyes out. But instead I opted for patience and fixed my face into its best irritating grin.

"You're staring, Potter."

"How can you tell? You're looking at the floor."

I can _feel_ it, you scar-headed git, I thought but didn't say. I could feel you and that unholy demon stare of yours through a lead apron.

I don't quite remember what I said after that. It wasn't very quick and it wasn't very clever, and frankly the sight of his fist on a collision course with my face was a lot more interesting.

In six years of intense loathing, I have never once had occasion to actually touch Potter. _Muggles_ fight with their hands. Wizards settle things with magic. But Potter was an idiot, and idiots settle things by punching people. Or they try to, at least.

It took me about half a second to overpower him, but for that first moment I was the one who couldn't move. The brief contact of his body with mine had me frozen solid.

"Did you just try and hit me, Potter?" In all fairness, it was a novel idea to me. For some reason I found the concept extremely funny.

Like I've said, Potter's an idiot. He tried to hit me again, and I caught his other arm with embarrassing ease.

"Let go of me or I'll—"

I wanted to. The whole thing had stopped being funny; I was hurting him and he looked terrified. But I couldn't make myself let go.

And the worst part was that I wanted to kiss him.

There is something fundamentally wrong with anybody who can look at someone they are clearly traumatizing and come to the conclusion, "perhaps they would feel better with my tongue down their throat."

My body either didn't get this concept or didn't care, moving seemingly of its own accord to commit a low-grade form of sexual assault on Potter's mouth. I knew I was scaring him, _hurting_ him, but apparently that doesn't have much effect on my libido.

It took me until he started struggling to notice that he hadn't been before, and I finally gained some minimal control over myself and shoved him away.

Suddenly I felt disgusting. Worse than disgusting.

I felt like my father.

"Shut up, Potter," I said.

OoOoOo

What followed was twenty minutes of them _both_ shutting up as they each settled into the longest and most disturbing period of thinking they'd ever done in their respective sixteen years of life.

Neither was sure exactly what had just happened.

But they both knew they didn't want to talk about it.

_

* * *

(a further a/n: It's vital that I immediately point out that I am NOT implying that Lucius is some kind of incestuous rapist before you fangirls (or fanboys for all I know) get any filthy ideas into your heads. Yes, it kinda sounds like that…if you are a PERVERT, and are thinking PERVERT thoughts every minute of your PERVERTED day._

…

_So you'd pretty much have to be exactly like me. Oh well. If that's your fandom, I'm not knocking it, but I'm not writing it either. _

_P.S._

_If you get the obscure Resident Evil reference in this chapter, eat yourself a nice congratulatory e-cookie in the less-than-comforting knowledge that you are just as big a dork as I am.)_


	4. Predicament

**Disclaimer**: If you wanna find me I'll be out in the sandbox, playing my guitar and not being J.K. Rowling.

_(a/n: I fear, dear readers, that the wee small chocolate bunny rabbits of emo are once again hopping their sugary little way into my fic. And I did so hope to avoid them this time around. Perhaps I need a little mesh fence for the cabbage patch of my writing…_

_But not today, dear readers. Today you have your healthily balanced breakfast of teenage angst, though fortunately it comes with a decent measure of steamy boy-love to get the taste out of your mouth. Yaoi makes everything better, doesn't it?_

_P.S._

_I dunno what British people call a backpack, but I'm calling it what Americans (or Bostonians at the very least) call it: a bag. Complain if you want, but considering my own accent, you people are lucky there aren't any scenes of Draco dwelling on how to tell Harry how wicked fuckin' pissah he is.)_

_P.P.S. _

_Obscure reference time: many a cookie to anyone who knows what the hell I'm talking about in the disclaimer. Especially considering how I'm misquoting it slightly.

* * *

_

Hour Four: Predicament

* * *

It was just a kiss. I mean, okay, so my contact with Malfoy isn't usually that…friendly, but who says you have to like someone to like snogging them?

Not that I did or anything. Like it, I mean. At all.

"…any windows in here."

"Hmm?"

"I said it's a shame there aren't any windows in here."

Mental. He snogs me to the point of non-functionality and then wants to talk about architecture.

"Why?"

Quick flash of the you-are-the-stupidest-person-I-have-ever-had-the-misfortune-to-meet look (so at least something was back to normal) before his eyes instantly glued themselves to an invisible bit of lint on the bottom of his shirt.

"Because we could get out of the room through a window," he said slowly.

All right, maybe it wasn't the smartest question I've ever asked.

"Oh. Right."

He hadn't stopped moving since he'd kissed me, and presently he was fidgeting around near one of the desks pretending to look for something in his bag.

I know he was pretending because he'd been doing it for ten minutes.

"Malfoy."

"Shut up, Potter. I'm busy."

"I don't care. What was all that about?"

The rummaging intensified.

"All what?"

"All _what_?"

"That _is_ what I said, isn't it? All what, Potter?"

He was still staring lovingly into the eyes of his backpack.

"You—" I crossed the room which until just then we had been standing uncomfortably on opposite sides of and chucked the bag to the floor, "—snogged me, Malfoy."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at his shoes.

"I'm aware."

I put my hands on his shoulders and shoved him up against the nearest wall in a now-you-have-pissed-me-off sort of way. He probably could've thrown me halfway across the room without trying, but he just went on staring in every direction but mine. "I want to know _why_."

"Felt like it."

"Because…you…felt…like it."

"Yeah. And by the way…"

In what seemed to be one movement I was the one up against the wall, each of my hands pinned with one of his.

"…don't start anything you can't finish, Potter."

OoOoOo

It was just a kiss. All right, so I can usually kiss people without having to spend the next fifteen minutes thinking of new and strategic ways to cross my legs, but then considering the pug-faced bovine atrocity I am usually snogging, that's hardly surprising.

He's looking at me again and I know I've got to say _something_. Anything…

"It's a shame there aren't any windows in here."

"Hmm?"

Okay. Maybe _anything_ was a little lax.

"I said it's a shame there aren't any windows in here."

"Why?"

So I'd have something to throw myself out of.

"Because," I said in a slow, condescending tone designed to make him feel as stupid for asking as I had for saying it in the first place, "we could get out of the room through a window."

"Oh. Right."

A faint blush colored his face, possibly the single most enticing thing I have ever seen. Being on the same side of the room as him suddenly seemed like a very, very bad idea.

But Potter, being (as I have said) an idiot, just couldn't leave well enough alone.

"Malfoy."

"Shut up, Potter. I'm busy."

There is a very good reason I've got this bag over my lap, but Potter is clueless as usual and, also as usual, will not shut up when told.

"I don't care. What was all that about?"

He took a step forward and I took a step back, making the most noise it is possible for a textbook, two quills, and a few stray pieces of parchment to make. "All what?"

"All _what_?"

I can barely get out my next sarcastic remark before he's once again committing a gross violation of my personal space, putting himself in serious danger of another unexpected snog. I'd rather have died than looked at him.

But then he just _had_ to touch me.

I've got self-restraint. I have. But I've also got testosterone. And right now the latter was winning out.

"…don't start anything you can't finish, Potter."

Whatever smartarse response he had ready, he didn't get a chance to say it. He didn't get a chance to do anything but give me another confused look before my mouth was firmly over his.

It was like having a magnet stuck to my tongue; I could not get it out of Potter's mouth. I don't know if he liked it or if he was trying to get away, but every movement of his body against mine heightened the arousal that had already built up to the point of physical pain.

"Ah!" It could've been encouragement or just surprise, but either way the noise was enough to start me out of the disturbing sexual daze.

"What?"

At this point, any number of things could've followed. "What're you doing?" or "Stop that, you sleazy pervert" or even a simple, "Malfoy, why have you got your hands down my trousers?"

But what he actually said was…

"Your hands are cold."

He had the most purely innocent expression I have ever seen on a human being, blinking at me with flushed naiveté like he had absolutely no idea where this was going.

I couldn't help it. I kissed him again, gentler this time but more insistently, running the hand that wasn't holding him to the wall with agonizing slowness down his body and trying not to enjoy the sight of him squirming uncomfortably at the touch. "You should learn to take what you dish out, Potter." The words were all too easy to find; I really have been spending too much time around Father.

His mouth broke away from mine in a long gasping breath and I knew right then he wouldn't run away even if I let him.

I wasn't just kissing him. I was _dominating_ him.

_No._

Goddammit, _no_.

"Get—get away from me, Potter."

"Malfoy…" His breathing was still heavy and so was mine. He looked confused, reaching a tentative hand toward me. "Malfoy, are you—"

"_Don't touch me._"

The hand drew back at lightning speed.

I don't know what I'd expected to see in his eyes. Relief, probably, but when I looked there wasn't any.

In fact if I didn't know better, I'd say Potter was worried about me.

OoOoOo

"Oh for god's sake, Malfoy, it was just a kiss."

"Shut up, Potter."

"You're being stupid."

"Leave me alone."

"What is your _problem_?"

"You wouldn't underst—_I said don't touch me_!"

Harry's grip on his arm didn't loosen. "I'll do what I bloody well want! I don't know what you're playing at here but you'd better—"

"Get your goddamn hands off me, Potter!"

"No!"

And Draco punched him.

"_Shit._ Potter!"

Harry put a hand to his face where Draco had struck him, but didn't try to stand up.

"Ow."

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean—are you all right?"

"That…really hurt," Harry said, wishing he'd at least managed to remain upright. Now he was embarrassed as well as injured.

"Here, let me see…" Draco's fingers touched gingerly on the circle of broken capillaries his own fist had left and for a brief, awkward moment Harry thought he was going to cry. "Oh god…I didn't mean to…I'm so sorry…"

Harry put his hand over Draco's, which worsened the pain in his face but kept him from looking away. "I don't want you to be sorry. I want to know why you hit me. I want to know why you keep snogging me. I just want to know _why_, all right?"

_Because I'm just like him_, Draco thought, but he kept the words to himself.

_

* * *

(a further a/n: In a recent discussion with my friend Nessa, she informed me that I have a "thing' with rape._

_Do I?_

_I mean, yeah, I do go for the whole I'm-gonna-say-I-don't-wanna-have-sex-with-you-even-though-I-really-kinda-do thing a lot (and you don't even want to know about some of the shit that goes on in my original fiction), but I always imagine Harry/Draco would be at least a LITTLE non-consensual to start out with, especially the way I write it._

_But IRL, "Rape," as my little brother put it, "is weak." Very weak indeed. So is domestic violence. You definitely shouldn't punch people if you want them to have sex with you. You know, unless you're like a dominatrix and they're into that sort of thing…I'm sorry, what were we talking about?_

_Oh yeah. Um, don't rape people. It's not nice._

_Serious business.) _


	5. Atonement

**Disclaimer**: Astoundingly enough, it is actually possible for me to run out of cheeky little ways to inform you that I am not J.K. Rowling. And now I have.

_(a/n: As you may have noticed, there's no witty disclaimer to be had today. There's also no bitingly sarcastic author's note (ah…except this one…and the one at the end of the chapter…just like usual so I don't actually know why I said that…maybe I meant that it isn't so much "bitingly sarcastic" as it is "filled with rambling and ellipses"). There's a whole lot lacking in this chapter, and it follows the path o' emo paved by my last fic a little to closely for comfort, but unfortunately for you my free time and my eternal soul are now property of the Quincy High Drama Department and my writing skills are starting to…like…suffer for it. Or something. I don't know, but I gotta wrap this up or I'll be late for rehearsal. That's right. We have rehearsal on Saturdays. Two goddamn months befor the show even goes up._

…_sigh…_

_P.S._

_I was really lax about responding to reviews last week, so this time I swear I'll answer every one. Ya know, unless it all it says is "update soon", in which case I will label a voodoo doll with your pen name and poke it repeatedly with something pointy.

* * *

_

Hour Five: Atonement

* * *

"I'm sorry." 

"If you say that one more time, you will be."

He looked at me and it suddenly became very clear that this was not the time for a vaguely threatening exchange of sarcasm.

"There's no point in telling—"

"You punched me in the face, Malfoy. I believe I'm owed an explanation."

"I can't explain that. Don't expect me to have an excuse. I…I _hit_ you…" He seemed to go six shades paler as he said the word. "I can't say anything to make up for that."

I literally had to grab his face to keep him from looking away. "Malfoy. You're annoying me."

He put his hands over mine like he was going to pull them away, but he didn't. "Aren't you afraid I'll hit you again?"

"Do I need to be?"

For a minute it looked like he was going to kiss me, but before I could decide whether or not to let him he was on his feet and as far away from me as the room would allow. With him gone lying on the floor just seemed melodramatic so I stood as well, but for every step closer I took he moved farther away.

"Will you stop that?"

"No. Look, just stay over there before I do anything else we'll both regret."

"Malfoy—"

"Potter, _please_ just leave me alone."

I'd really run out of patience at this point.

"Oh, I'm so _sorry_, Malfoy. How rude of me. I should've known how tough it is to have to go round snogging people and then punching them in the face all day. It must be _awful_ having all that money and a family and—"

"Just because I've got parents doesn't mean they're good ones!"

I could tell right away he hadn't meant to say it; his eyes snapped back down to the floor and his cheeks glowed a faint pink.

"What?"

"Nothing. I didn't—forget it. It's nothing."

"Like hell it is."

"I said it's nothing."

There was that dangerous tone again, and again I ignored it. "And I said it wasn't."

"You wouldn't understand," he tried, but I just went on glaring at him because that seemed to be working pretty well lately. He let out a very long breath and said finally, "Look, you're an orphan, Potter."

"Am I? Thanks loads, Malfoy, I'd forgotten."

"Shut up. Someone who hasn't got any parents doesn't know what it's like always having people expect you to be like them."

Right. Only I've met about four people in the last six years who didn't start our first conversation with, "he looks just like James, but he's got Lily's eyes." But I know if I interrupt him again I'm never going to hear the rest of this, so I don't bother saying that.

"And even if you _do_ grow up just like yours, it's all right for you because _your_ parents are the sort of people it's all right to be like. My parents—my father—" He looked right at me and I started to wish he'd go back to staring at the floor. "If I'm going to grow up like him then I don't want to grow up at all."

"You don't mean that." I don't know why I said it because it was obvious he did; I don't think I'd ever seen him look so serious.

"Yes I do! I've seen Mother after he gets through with her. He _likes_ hurting her. And me—I don't think he even wanted children. He just knew if he didn't have any people would think there was something wrong with him. Now I have to do everything right, be a perfect little reflection on Lucius fucking Malfoy or Mother—" He was still looking at me, but he was really talking to himself. "I wouldn't care if it was just me. But she's always the one he hurts. So yes, Potter, I would rather _die_ than turn out like him."

We were close again; he'd been too busy talking to remember to keep away. His fingers bushed the side of my face, across the mark he'd left there. "But I did anyway, didn't I? I ended up just like him…"

Well, I had to say_ something_, didn't I?

OoOoOo

"I'm sorry."

He looked it; it must be impossible to lie with eyes like that, every emotion so glaringly etched into those bright green orbs.

"Don't be. It's not your fault my father's a sadistic lunatic."

"But you're not like that at all. I always thought you were an arse, but I never thought you were anything like as bad as your dad."

Thought. Past tense. I wondered if he noticed he was using it.

"Did you miss the bit where I punched you, Potter? Right after I practically raped you?"

"I wasn't exactly running for the hills, though, was I? And you told me to—"

"Don't make excuses for me. I was about eight seconds away from forcing myself on you and you've got a bruise the size of a small planetary body on your face because _I hit you._ You can't justify that and neither can I."

He was quiet for a while, probably trying to work out how to get away from such a horrifying monstrosity of a person.

"You didn't do it because you were like your dad."

I looked up. He didn't seem the least bit angry.

"You just didn't want me touching you because you'd end up snogging me again and—well, maybe doing something else—when I didn't want you too. Right?"

It hadn't even crossed my mind to try explaining it. Somehow "I punched you so I wouldn't have to rape you" didn't seem like the right thing to say. "Potter, stop trying to make it sound like something a normal person would do. I shouldn't have ever touched you in the first place."

"I didn't exactly mind, you know." He said it so quietly I could hardly hear him, even from about five inches away.

"What?"

"Even if you did it to me then…I wouldn't have put up much of a fight. I don't care, really. If you still want—"

"Oh shut up." It came out sounding so vicious and angry that I wanted to pull the words straight back where they'd come from. "I'm not laying another finger on you ever again, got it?" He gave me a look that was confused, guilty, and so completely filled with hurt I immediately hated myself for causing it. "Er…I just mean…look, it's taking advantage, okay?"

"Right." He was studying the floor intensely, his whole face flushed with embarrassment.

"That was—I shouldn't have—er. Right."

God, if I could just…

No. No, dammit, I have got to go more than two minutes without breaking my word.

I am not going to snog him.

I am not going to snog him.

I am not.

I am not.

I…

"Malfoy…"

And then thankfully, he snogged me.

OoOoOo

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not complaining, am I?"

"But you said not to—"

"I say a lot of things."

Draco put his hand very hesitantly on top of Harry's, fully expecting him to pull away.

He didn't.

"Potter…"

Very slowly Harry entwined his fingers with Draco's, knowing he'd probably draw back and move away again.

He didn't.

"Hmm?"

"Er…thanks."

"Yeah. I was thinking the same thing."

_

* * *

(a further a/n: Aw, no yaoi?_

_Yes. No yaoi. I was gonna put some here, but then I thought "No, I'll give them something better than smut…hand-holding!"_

_Wait, that's not better at all, is it?_

_Oh well. Just have to wait until next week, won't you? There's some smut in chapter six, which I could post early...only I'm not going to because then you'd be shit out of luck the week after as I won't have had a chance to write the next one yet. So there.)_


	6. Entanglement

**Disclaimer: **(insert clever witticism here)

_(a/n: Sorry, but I'm busy giving Marvin the cold shower he needs after having this chapter written on him.)_

* * *

Hour Six: Entanglement

* * *

We weren't getting anywhere like this.

"Maybe we could break it down."

"Potter, I wouldn't—"

"IMPEDIMENTA!"

"—do that if I were you."

The spell bounced off the door and sent me flying. From the force of it I should have crashed straight into the back row of desks, but instead I crashed into Malfoy.

It took me a minute to realize he'd done it on purpose.

"Er…you were going to hit the desks…"

He blushed and mumbled on for a few more syllables.

"There is something wrong with that door." It was all I could come up with, finding it weirdly hard to think with his arms around me like that, wondering how long we could possibly pass the contact off as innocent.

Yes, he'd only caught me to stop me concussing myself on the desks.

Yes, it was the sort of thing anybody might've done.

But he was still holding me up three minutes later and it was starting to seem a lot like something else.

"Harry…" It was practically inaudible.

"What?" The word came out loud and surprised. I couldn't help it. My universe has certain fundamental rules and one of them is that Draco Malfoy does not call me by my first name. Ever.

It was like watching someone who's been hypnotized snap out of it; he blinked quickly about forty times in a row and then looked down at me like he had no idea how I'd got there.

And shot across the room so fast I nearly fell over again.

"I-I think you've got balance issues, Potter," he said quickly, scowling and trying to pretend he wasn't tripping over his own words.

"Harry."

"What?" He stared at me, not understanding the correction.

"I…liked having you call me that."

"I'm not—I can't—" He'd picked a bad place to stand; he couldn't back up any farther.

"Yes you can. I'm telling you to. And—and I'm going to call you Draco."

"No you're not! Can you please just—"

"No, Draco." I put a hand on either side of his face to stop him looking away. "I can't."

OoOoOo

We weren't getting anywhere like this.

"I told you already," I said, keeping my gaze as far into my peripheral vision as it would go. "It'd be taking advantage."

I couldn't think of a better explanation while most of my brainpower was dedicated to keeping all my blood from rushing to a certain conspicuous and inconvenient area.

"Well maybe I want to be taken advantage of!"

Oh god. He must be trying to kill me.

"You don't even know what that means." I kept my jaw shut, saying the words through my teeth in the fear that any excess movement of my tongue would result in it ending up in Harry—_dammit_— er, _Potter's_ mouth.

There was no easy way to tell him, so I didn't tell him at all. I didn't tell him I was afraid it'd be like it was for her, on nights when he'd dragged her into their bedroom and on mornings when she'd dragged herself out again, stiff and sore and practically immobile with bruises…but smiling. Mother always smiled when she saw me looking. But she was never, ever happy.

"It means…" His mouth touched mine, barely. "It's like when you kiss me. Right? That's taking advantage."

"Y-Yeah." I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. I can't let myself touch him. If I touch him, something very bad is going to happen. "It is. Er."

His fingers laced through mine, pulling my hand towards him, down to his waist. Leaning forward. His body against mine.

"And if I let you put your hands on me." He took hold of my other hand and put it on the last place I had any business touching. "Is _that_ taking advantage?"

His flesh was warm and firm under my palm. I tried not think of how much I'd like to do away with the layer of fabric separating us. Throw him down and take him, there on the floor, hear him breathing, panting, _moaning_—

"Er. Yeah. Of course it is. Stop." It was the weakest and least sincere protest ever uttered by any human ever to exist in any universe.

Was he a virgin, I was trying not to think. Would it hurt him? Was he going to yell and scream? Would it be from pleasure or from pain or—

"So—" The hand resting on his backside tightened involuntarily when he pushed further toward me, brushing with a horribly pleasurable friction against areas that in no way needed more stimulation. "So if I kiss _you_—" And he did. "If I put my hands on _you_—" And he did. "If it's _me_ that's taking advantage—" And he _was_. "_Then_ can you do what you want? What I _want_ you to do to me?"

If God was testing me, I was failing.

"Yeah." I touched him. He whimpered, a sound far more stimulating to me than he probably realized. "I can."

OoOoOo

Getting somewhere would've been a great deal easier if they'd actually wanted to go.

"Promise me something," Draco said breathily, the words soft in his ear as his hands slowly worked their way under Harry's robes. "I want you to swear you'll tell me if I'm hurting you, all right?"

"Is…is it supposed to hurt?" For all he'd acted like it earlier, he hadn't the faintest idea what he was doing.

"I'm not sure. I've only done it once before, and it wasn't with a bloke."

Harry frowned. "You—?"

"Yes, unfortunately, I did," Draco said to the floor.

"Was it that bad?"

"You've seen my girlfriend. What do you think?"

Harry laughed, then added quietly, "I don't think I'm going to be very good at it."

Draco's touch softened a little and he put his hands on Harry's shoulders instead of under his clothes. "Do you think I care about that? Sex is the least important thing I want to do with you._ Looking_ at you does more for me than anything in six years with her has and I'm not going to spoil it for the sake of an erection, thanks."

Harry gave him a scowl with no real malice behind it. "You're being disgustingly sweet right now. Nothing at all like my Draco Malfoy."

"No," Draco said softly. "This is exactly what your Draco Malfoy is like. You're just used to seeing everyone else's."

Still Harry shied away from his touch. "But I don't know how to do any of this—" he waved his hand vaguely "—stuff. Sex…things. I can't…I've never…"

He trailed off, left with too little breath for words as Draco pushed his tongue into his mouth with the same passionate ferocity he was using to grind his body against Harry's own. "Is that it, then? You don't think you can _satisfy_ me, Harry?" Harry's heart fluttered embarrassingly at the use of his first name. "Hmm?"

Realizing the question wasn't rhetorical, Harry nodded silently.

"Well," said Draco, winding a hand slowly through Harry's clothes and taking far longer than was necessary to get them off, "In that case I feel obligated to inform you that I've had this—" Harry flushed scarlet as Draco pulled one of his hands down to the now rather prominent bulge at the front his pants "—for about the last three hours thanks to your—" Harry's back hit the wall and Draco's tongue plunged into his mouth again "—complete lack—" Harry was breathing loudly and Draco hardly seemed to be breathing at all "—of sexual—" a soft, quavering moan escaped his lips as Draco's mouth migrated to his neck "—expertise."

It was impossible to form words under such circumstances and Harry said nothing, though he wondered briefly how all their clothes had ended up on the floor so quickly.

"I won't think twice about stopping if you don't want me," Draco began, and though he was laughing his eyes were filled far more with lust than with humor, "but what _ever_ gave you the idea that I didn't want you?"

A low guttural cry rose from Harry's throat as Draco's body pressed closer into his own, turning to a gasp of anticipatory pain as he felt him make contact. "Don't tense up like that or it really _will_ hurt," Draco warned.

"Of course I'm—" He winced slightly as Draco moved against him and then tried to pretend he hadn't "—tense, Draco, I'm a millimeter away from losing my virginity to a bloke I thought I ha—OW!"

"No, you _have_ lost your virginity to a bloke you thought you hated." He paused. "Are you all right?"

"I'm f-fine," Harry stammered quietly. "Don't just stop like that, it makes it worse."

Draco braced his hand against the wall, moving forward again, and Harry chewed hard on his lower lip to keep silent. If he screamed now he'd never get Draco to do this again.

"You…don't look like you're enjoying this much," Draco said slowly, his breathing heavy with his own pleasure but noticing a distinct lack of anything but pain of Harry's part.

"It doesn't—" he inhaled sharply as Draco drove into him again "—hurt that much anymore. I—" a short, whining yelp flew from his mouth, which he ignored, and continued, "—don't want you to stop." He smiled unconvincingly. "I want to make you happy."

"Make me…? Right. I'm stopping." Draco's movements slowed to a halt. "I'm hurting you and you won't let me stop because you want me to be—_mmph_!" The last word was muffled into nothing as Harry pulled Draco's mouth and body closer to his own, kissing him fiercely and forcing him back inside. "_Harry! _Don't—ah—do that!"

"Why? You _want_ me, don't you? That's what you said before."

"I wasn't exactly thinking clearly then, though, was I? Just forget it, Harry I don't need to—"

"If I wanted you to stop…" he said, though it came out as more of a pant than a sentence, "I'd have asked you to stop."

Draco sighed and, albeit a little reluctantly, thrust forward again. The movement hurt less with every repetition and soon it hardly hurt at all.

"Are you all—?"

"_YES_!" Harry said, a little surprised he could be so aggravated and so aroused at the same time. "I'm _fine_, and I'd be a lot better if you _shut up_ worrying about it!" His nails bit into the flesh of Draco's shoulders as their mouths met again.

"Oh, pardon me for breathing," growled Draco when they broke apart, making Harry gasp as he was pushed back hard against the wall. "Just thought I'd ask since you were screaming your head off."

"And whose…fault…d'you think…that is?" He struggled to form the sentence as Draco's arms sank to his waist, dragging Harry's hips back forcibly against his own.

"I won't ask anymore, then. It's easy enough to tell what you want."

Harry deeply regretted not having the breath to tell him to shut up.

But like it or not, Draco _did_ know what he wanted, _exactly_ what he wanted, and for all Harry's inexperience Draco was more driven with breathless desire than he'd even thought himself capable of feeling. Blood rose in thin crimson lines as Harry nails raked across his back, and Draco—

_Thud_.

"Stop! _Stop_—I mean it, Draco—STOP! What was that?"

_Thud._

"I didn't hear anything. Don't move."

_Thud._

"That! Just now! That sort of banging noise…"

"You're—" _Thud_. "—imagining things, Harry. Come _on_, I was about four seconds away…"

"No…I think it's—_I said stop it!_—I think there's someone at the door!"

"Then tell them to bugger off and come back in ten minutes."

Harry thought about it. He really did. But then—

"OI! HARRY! YOU IN THERE?" The voice was loud even through the door.

"Ron," he groaned, more to himself than to Draco.

"Are you _sure_—"

"I can read, Hermione. Look, right there! Harry Potter. See?"

"Well then what's that other one?"

Harry's heart sank. He pushed away a confused and annoyed-looking Draco and darted around the room in a frantic attempt to get his clothes back on.

"What other one?"

_What's going on_? Draco mouthed at him.

"That one right there. Doesn't that mean there's someone else there?"

_It's my friends_, he answered more or less silently. _Hide._

"I can't read it, the bloody writing on this thing is so—"

"RON! HERMIONE! CAN YOU GET THIS DOOR OPEN?!"

"Told you he was here."

The door flew open with no apparent resistance and hit Harry in the face.

"Nice one, Hermione, look what you did to his face!"

"Oh! Sorry, Harry! I didn't think you'd be right behind the door!"

Harry covered his cheek with his hand and tried not to blush. "It's nothing. But thanks, I've been stuck in here for ages. It's been miserable."

"Yeah, well…er, here's your map back," Ron said a bit awkwardly. "Er…there wasn't anyone else in here, was there? Because we could've sworn it said—"

Harry laughed uncomfortably. "No one worth noticing, or I'd have seen them by now. I've been in here for six hours."

"Yeah…well…it's just that it says—"

Harry snatched the map from his hands and growled impatiently, "Well it's wrong then, isn't it? And if it's all the same to you I'd like to be done with this whole crap experience now, thanks very much!"

"All right, you don't have to shout…"

Behind the desk, Draco Malfoy sighed.

_"It's been miserable..."_

_"No one worth noticing…"_

_"It's nothing..."_

Waiting silently for them to leave, he wondered why the words hurt so much.

_

* * *

(a further a/n: This chapter marks a weird turning point in the story. I wrote two completely different versions of the next chapter. The first was an ending. But the more I looked at it, the more I thought, "no, I'm not done yet…" And, well, I wasn't. So I changed the end of this chapter, scrapped my first version of the next one and wrote a whole new version. Which is the version I shall be posting. 'Cause I like it better. So there._

_I'm not exactly sure if that's a good idea or not, but if you know me at all, dear readers, you know that's not going to stop me._

_P.S._

_So, how was the smut? I think I made it a little too dirty this time, especially some of Draco's bits…it makes me a little uncomfortable, to be honest…_


	7. Disenchantment

**Disclaimer:** If J.K. blew off her deadlines like this, she'd surely have been killed by now. Probably by me.

_(a/n: Inexcusably slow updates, anyone? Many thanks for your patience, dear readers, or if you have been impatient, thank you for not taking it out on me…I've had a nice touch of good old fashioned writer's block recently and I just thank the gods I was able to bang this out before everyone got too aggravated to read any more of it. Or at least I hope you're not too aggravated to read anymore of it, anyway…)

* * *

_

Chapter 7: Disenchantment

* * *

It wasn't that I missed him, exactly. I mean, I'd have to be completely stupid to expect "Did you see Potter and Malfoy having it out in the hallway again?" to suddenly become "Did you see what Potter and Malfoy put on their wedding registry?", but I expected…

I don't know what I expected. But not this. Not "Did you see Potter smile at Malfoy and Malfoy look back at him like he's recently crawled out from under a toilet?"

I didn't expect everything to go back to being the way it was.

"Harry?" Hermione was looking at me and I was looking at the floor. "Are you all right?

"Fine."

"Then what're you making that face for?"

"I'm not making a face," I said, scowling at the back of Draco's head as he took a seat at the desk in front of mine. I was determined to keep calling him that, even with things like they were. Well, maybe not out loud, but…

"Yes you _are_," Ron said unhelpfully. I kicked him under the desk and Snape gave us both a look with "detention" written all over it.

"You should've at least said something to Ginny when you got in last night," Ron said when Snape had found someone else to glare at. "She was practically tearing down the school looking for you."

"Oh. Ginny." I stared very hard straight ahead and tried not to give the impression that I'd forgotten she existed. Which I had.

"Yeah. Ginny." I tore my eyes away from the back of Draco's disinterested head at Ron's tone. "My sister. Remember her? Your girlfriend?" He glared at me with an expression that might have been very menacing on a face with fewer freckles. "Might be nice if you ever actually—" He stopped, still fuming, then added, "I wish you'd just chuck her instead of messing her about like this!"

"_Ron_!" Hermione gave him a sharp look elbowed him in the stomach. "That's an awful thing to say!"

And it _was_ awful. But it was also true.

Ginny was sweet and funny and beautiful and probably the most perfect girl I ever had any hope of meeting, but for some reason I didn't love her at all.

"I don't care! Look at him, Hermione, he's more interested in the back of Malfoy's head than his own bloody girlfriend, it's _not sodding normal_—"

I smiled as Draco gave me a quick, expectant look over his shoulder at the mention of his name, but Snape had picked exactly the wrong moment to dismiss the class and anything I might've done in response was immediately drowned out by students in an understandable rush to leave. I was still trying to decide what to pretend to have to go back and get as Ron and Hermione were leaving when Draco decided to skip right over the secretive bit.

"Potter. I want a word with you."

"Piss off, Malfoy," Ron said instantly. Being angry with me wasn't reason enough to stop him hating Draco.

"_Alone_." He grabbed my arm and pulled me out into the hallway, apparently forgetting that it'd be filled with loads of people, and then dragged me straight back in again. He glared at Ron and Hermione, who were too confused to have gone anywhere. "Out. Both of you. _Now_."

"Five minutes," I told them with an apologetic shrug. Ron looked about to say something but Hermione elbowed him again.

"What is it with you and abandoned classrooms, Malfoy?" I said when they'd gone.

He didn't laugh.

"I just want to know," he said as he backed me up against one of the desks, "what you think you're playing at."

"I—er—" his mouth covered mine before the words could be formed properly; my arms went around his shoulders without any prompting from my brain. "Draco—"

"No." He straightened suddenly and pushed me away. "You're not just going to call me that when you feel like it. Call me it all the time or don't call me it at all."

"But someone would—"

"Then let them. Whatever it is people want to say about it, either let them say it or don't do anything worth talking about."

"I don't—"

"It's called an ultimatum, Potter. I've kept enough secrets to last a lifetime and I won't do it with you. So—" His eyes locked with mine and much as I wanted to I couldn't look away. "—chuck Weasley and go out with me or I'm never going to see you like this again."

Which was more or less exactly what I'd been afraid he'd say.

OoOoOo

"Does that mean you missed me?"

"It's been fourteen hours, Potter, don't be daft. And don't change the subject."

"You were counting?"

"I said _don't change the bloody subject_!"

His eyes locked on anything but mine, shifting around the room to stare at a million inconsequential nothings. Apparently bits of dusts were of far more interest than, say, acknowledging the heartfelt speech I'd just given him.

He slid back against the desk behind him, half-sitting on it and training his eyes on the far wall. "I don't like this, Draco." First name. Good sign, I suppose.

"What don't you like?" My fingers wound through his hair and he took a sharp, quick breath as my mouth pressed against his neck.

"You _know_ what. I care about Ginny—" he bit his lip as my hands drifted farther south than was probably polite, "—and I care about you—" he motioned for me to stop and let him get his breath back, but I only kissed him again, tracing the gentle lines of his body with one hand and holding him still with the other. If he said what I thought he was going to I wouldn't be getting another chance to do this. "—but either way someone gets hurt."

"Then don't think about us." His nails bit into my shoulders again, which considering the absue they'd taken last night would probably have been very painful if I was in any state to notice it. "Think about yourself. What do you want, Harry?"

"…I…I want…"

I grabbed his face in irritation, turning it up to mine with a sharp pang of guilt as I carefully avoided the bruise that was still fairly prominent there. "Well?"

He blinked silently, his eyes glistening with a slight shimmer of tears and suddenly I wished I hadn't said anything at all.

OoOoOo

"I think I must've missed something," said Ron irritably. The corridor was a bit more crowded than one might expect more than ten minutes after the end of the lesson, due mostly to the large number of people who'd seen Draco Malfoy dragging Harry Potter into a deserted classroom. "Because that seemed a hell of a lot like Harry ditching us for Malfoy."

"He must have a very good reason for it," replied Hermione, sounding less than sure herself.

"I can't imagi—"

There was a loud crash from inside the classroom and a disheveled pair of teenage boys appeared in the doorway. Everyone who hadn't already been watching whipped around to stare and a silence of unimaginable awkwardness promptly descended.

Draco smoothed out his hair. Harry straightened his tie.

Then, giving the crowd a defiant smile, he grabbed Draco by the shirt collar and kissed him full on the mouth.

"Does that answer your bloody question?"

* * *

_(a further a/n: as you probably noticed, due to the fact that they are no longer locked in a confined area the story is no longer measured in hours. If that seems weird to you, that's because it is weird. This story is now pretty much not in any way related to my original design for it, and I'd really appreciate it if you could all pretend I am capable of planning things in a way that makes sense. Please?)_


	8. Adjournment

**Disclaimer**: Unfortunately, I wrote this without my Gauntlet of Being J.K. Rowling on. But I did have the Pajama Pants of Copyright Infringement, so we're good.

_(a/n: Oh look, I'm still alive! I know, I was surprised too. You'll be thrilled to know I get my life back as of next Monday, so I stand a chance of actually finishing a chapter sometime during the same century I am supposed to be posting it in. As opposed to taking two weeks to write 1,500 words, like I've been doing. Which is completely awful. Just like this chapter._

_But look, it has a nice ironic name! Isn't that enough?_

_Yeah, I didn't think so either.)_

* * *

Chapter 8: Adjournment

* * *

"Next time, don't get in the middle like that."

"Next time?" Draco scowled at me as he wrung the blood out of the washcloth he was using to clean off my face. "There won't _be_ any next time. As soon as Madam Pomfrey comes back I'm going to kill him for this."

"Leave off him, Draco, I deserved it."

"He broke your nose!"

"I chucked his sister. For a bloke."

"At least you've got a reason. Hold still."

I winced involuntarily as he continued scrubbing the skin off my already injured face. "Ah—ow! Draco, will you please—"

He blinked at me, gray eyes playful but concerned. "Please what?" He put his mouth on mine, the kiss mixed slightly with the taste of lingering blood. "You're still cute even when you're a bloody mess, Harry. In fact, I can hardly keep my hands off you."

I tried and failed not to blush. The hospital wing was empty at the moment but not anything like private enough for Draco and his one-track mind.

"Don't even think about it."

"There's not a whole lot of thinking involved in this, is there?" he asked, smiling and unbuttoning my shirt, which I'd have had to take off anyway as it had about a gallon of blood down the front of it.

"If we get caught, I'll kill you," I said in quick, shallow breaths as he pushed me down on one of the beds, and with the weight of his body on top of me I probably couldn't have gotten away if I tried. But then again, I wasn't trying at all.

"Fine by me. At least I'd die doing something I love deeply."

"'Something' or 'someone'?" For a moment I wasn't sure whether I'd thought it or said it, but when Draco froze to look at me, confused and reluctant and obviously forgetting he was supposed to be violating me I knew I must've said more than I should've.

"Hello, Harry. Hello, Malfoy." Ginny paused, staring and interrupting our awkward silence with one of her own. "You owe me a galleon, Ron, they _are_ having sex."

OoOoOo

"Next time, no interruptions," I whispered in Harry's ear. He tried to stand up but I sat back on the bed and pulled him down onto my lap. "Stay."

"I'm not a dog, Draco, don't order me around like one."

"No," I said, wrapping my arms around his squirming form to the obvious discomfort of everyone but myself. "You're my _boyfriend_, and I reserve the right to public displays of affection." I kissed him lightly on the cheek and he gave me a murderous look but sat at least mildly still.

"This is complete crap, Ginny, I'm not—"

"You even _think_ about leaving this room without apologizing and I'm telling Hermione about that book of yours I found last week. What was it again? _Twelve Failsafe Ways to Charm Wi—"_

"Sorry about that whole hitting you thing, Harry," said Weasley in an insincere rush. Harry fidgeted uncomfortably in my lap and grabbed my wrist warningly.

"Don't be. I—Ginny…I didn't mean it to happen and I didn't want you to find out like this. I just…I'm sorry. I really am."

She laughed. "Sorry for what? If you'd chucked me for a girl I might be mad, but as it's because you don't even like women I think I can live with it."

Harry looked a bit like he was fighting back a smile. "But—"

"Not 'but'. We're your friends and we haven't got a problem with it, have we Ron?"

Weasley gave me a filthy look and his sister elbowed him rather viciously in the stomach. "No. I haven't got a problem with you being…well. Like that," he said, taking an astonishingly long time to form the words. "It's your shit taste in men I've got a problem with." He gave me a glare of deepest freckle-faced loathing and turned for the door.

"Ron—"

"I'll see you later, Harry."

"You are incredibly lucky I like you so much," I said after a strained silence, "because I _hate_ your friends."

OoOoOo

"Next time I decide to out myself, remind me to do it less publicly," Harry said in a tone of deep aggravation. Several people behind them snickered as Draco's hand closed over his and squeezed it gently.

"In all fairness, you did ask for it," he said, smiling emotionlessly at the crowd and tightening his grip on Harry's hand. "We both did."

Harry sighed. "I just don't see why they've all got so much invested in other people's love lives. Is it really that big a deal?"

"These are the same people who've been watching us trying to kill each other for the last six years. Of course it's a big deal."

"I hate being famous."

Draco laughed, putting an arm around Harry shoulder and sending a group of passing third year girls into hysterical giggles. "Ah, but only a celebrity could have such a devastatingly attractive lover as myself, so you've lucked out there."

"So you're only going out with me because I'm famous?"

"Of course not. I'm in it for the sex."

"You are such a berk sometimes."

"But the rest of the time I'm pretty amazing, aren't I?"

"Git."

"Harry!" Draco shoved his hands into his pockets and took great interest in a nearby wall hanging as a scowling Ron and an out-of-breath Hermione raced up to them. "We're late for breakfast already, what are you—oh, hello Malfoy." Hermione put on a look of strained politeness.

"As long as Harry and I are going out, you might as well call me Draco," he said in an equally forced and awkward tone.

"Like hell we will, _Malfoy_," snapped Ron immediately. "And what do you mean "as long as"? What are you planning on—"

"Actually, _Weasley,_ I was talking to Gra—I mean Hermione—and the offer doesn't extend to you." His tone softened and suddenly he looked embarrassed. "Listen, I'm sorry about…well…more or less everything. I didn't mean anything by—well, all right, I _did_, but I don't anymore. So even if it's just for Harry's sake, do you think we could just—" Ron opened his mouth and Draco snapped "And just so you know, Weasley, there's no heartfelt apology coming your way. You _are_ a git, your family _is_ poor, and I still don't like you."

Hermione grabbed Ron's wand arm and Harry put an arm around Draco's waist.

"Hermione," Ron said very slowly. "Please let go of my arm so that I may punch this wanker on the nose."

"No."

"He deserves it."

"He said he was sorry."

"He called me a git."

"You called him a wanker."

"He said I was poor."

"You are poor."

"That's not the point."

"And the point would be...?"

"Just let me—WILL YOU GIRLS PLEASE GO AND FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO STARE AT?—hit him once and I'll stop, I swear—"

"_No_."

"If Malfoy kills you, I'm taking your broom," Ginny said as she walked past the spectacle without slowing for more than a few steps. "Might want to steer clear of breakfast, Harry, there's about a million letters there for you." She sighed. "Tell me you're not going to interview about this, I don't want to see my romantic failures in _Witch Weekly_, thanks…"

Harry smiled awkwardly. "You know I can't resist the public eye, Ginny…

If more was said afterwards, Draco didn't hear it. _Witch Weekly?_ He swallowed uncomfortably over the nervous lump that had suddenly formed in his throat.

A school full of gossiping adolescents was one thing. It was a bit embarrassing, a bit annoying, but nothing he couldn't handle. But magazines? Newspapers?

He fixed his smile back on and kissed Harry goodbye as they separated in the directions of their respective classes.

His mother read _Witch Weekly_.

_

* * *

(a further a/n: —sigh— What a boring chapter. I put myself to sleep writing it, honestly. Anyway, the only thing I can think of to babble about is the fact that I've written this so it sounds like they're making out while Harry's nose is still broken. I meant it like Madam Pomfrey fixed it and then went off to do fuck knows what while Draco cleaned him up, but apparently I neglected to mention that and then I decided writing this would be easier that just fixing the fucking chapter. Which it isn't, considering it just prompts the messy, painful, and not at all sexy image of a broken-nosed make out session. Not that a mere broken nose would be enough to stop me wanting to make out with Draco Malfoy…but maybe that's just me.)_


	9. Concealment

**Disclaimer**: I am not made from J.K., nor do I taste like one. But I _am_ holding a box of Splenda.

_(a/n: Yay for short sucky chapters! Oh wait. I don't like those at all, do I? Crap._

_My drama career may have seen its end, but on account of Anime Boston being next week, dear readers, you are still in for a wonderland of half-assed writing and late updates. Hurrah. Also, I've once again neglected to respond to like eighty percent of my reviews, so this week I will definitely do that. I mean, assuming you can even think of anything to say about this complete offense to the written word.)_

* * *

Chapter 9: Concealment

* * *

"I don't want to talk about it," Draco said as he slid dejectedly into the seat next to mine. Or, more accurately, Draco and the worst black eye I've ever seen slid dejectedly into the seat next to mine. 

My eyes snapped immediately to Ron, but Draco shook his head. "If it was Weasley, I wouldn't be the one with a black eye, Harry."

"Who—"

"They weren't keen on letting me see their faces. You wouldn't believe how dark some of those dungeons get…"

"I'm going to—"

He kissed me for a long, intensely pleasurable moment during which Ron snapped his quill in half and Hermione stared very hard at her textbook. "No you're not. You are going to write your Potions essay, I am going to sit here and watch you write it, and then I am going to take you to nice secluded area and show you my new and interesting bruises."

"C'mon, Hermione," Ron growled, as close to shouting as he could get without Madam Pince killing him on the spot. "We're leaving."

"_You're_ leaving," Hermione said without looking up from her parchment. "I've got four essays to write."

"You can write them upstairs, can't you?"

"Of course I could, but then I'd also be entertaining the temper tantrum you insist on throwing every time Harry and Draco are with in eight miles of each other."

"Stop calling him that! He's not our friend!"

"He's practically our brother-in-law, Ron. And keep your voice—"

"MR. POTTER! MR. MALFOY! THIS IS A LIBRARY, NOT A BROTHEL! I'LL THANK YOU TO KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF!"

"—down."

Draco pulled his arm off my shoulder with a murderous glare at Madam Pince. "Funny how no one's said anything to them," he said in a low, angry voice, pointing to the pair of fifth years snogging merrily away about four feet to our left.

"Leave it," I grumbled quietly. "I've got an essay, remember?"

"Bollocks to your essay, Harry, I'm—"

"NO TALKING!"

"—leaving." He got to his feet in a huff but only walked about six inches before turning to give me an expectant look.

"Draco? Are you—"

"Didn't I say I didn't want to talk about it?"

OoOoOo

Well, I _didn't_ want to talk about it.

Not that I was having second thoughts. I wasn't. Because Everything was exactly like I wanted it. I had Harry, didn't I?

Of course I also had a black eye, no place to sleep and a letter from Father.

I winced at a twinge in my chest that was either worry or sympathy or possibly a cracked rib from last night. I hadn't been back to the dormitory in four days, but yesterday my "friends" had caught me in the hall and I hadn't quite recovered.

_To_ _Draco Malfoy—_

Naturally I couldn't prove a damn thing. I'd seen Crabbe and Goyle assault enough people to tell when it was happening to me. Pansy's sobbing is particularly distinctive. And absolutely no one else has a laugh anything like Blaise Zabini's.

_Your mother's had another accident…_

I felt the neatly folded parchment in my pocket for the hundredth time. It felt heavier then it should've been. He could lie the healers. His friends. His colleagues. Anyone and everyone else. But I knew my mother had never had an "accident" in her life.

_…fell down…_

Fell. Of course. Isn't she clumsy?

_…her condition is…_

The parchment crumpled noisily into the fist I hadn't noticed I was making.

_Visitors would strain her recovery._

That was all. He'd signed his full name at the bottom. His full name in a letter to his own son.

"Draco!"

I looked up slowly. "Harry."

"Are you suddenly hard of hearing? I've been calling you for—god, what _happened_?"

"No…I…it's nothing…"

If sobbing like an infant constitutes nothing, that is.

"Draco…" Warm hands touched my face and came back soaked with tears. "What the hell is going on?"

OoOoOo

"I said I don't want to—"

"Talk about it. I know. But you're going to anyway."

"My mother," Draco answered dully, because he was bound to find out by next morning anyway, "is coming home from St. Mungo's today."

"She's—dammit, Draco, you could've told me she was in hospital!"

"No, I couldn't've. I didn't know. The only reason Father told me now is so I wouldn't try and see her when I found out." He ground his teeth unhappily, wiping his face on his sleeve. "Harry…I can't leave her there. When he finds out…if he doesn't know already…" He stopped, his breathing still quick and strange from crying. "He'll…he'll…I can't leave her, I can't, I—"

"Of course not," Harry said consolingly. "We'll think of something, let's just—"

Draco turned to face the wall, staring fixedly at a tapestry across from him. "No."

"What?"

"I have to leave, Harry. Tonight. You understand that, don't you? Because when my father finds out about us, he'll do worse than put her in the hospital." He swallowed thickly. "He'll kill her. He will, whether he means to or not. I can't—" He turned to find Harry walking away. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"Yeah." Harry hadn't been completely out of ear shot. "Not half as sorry as you will be if you're not here when I get back."

Draco looked up but said nothing.

"Did you really think I'd let you go after that maniac on your own? I'm getting my broom, I'll be back in ten minutes."

Draco smiled and kissed Harry gently on the mouth. "Right. I'll wait."

It was a lie and they both knew it.

He loved him too much for that.

* * *

_(a further a/n: Well I'm certainly underwhelmed. I was trying to delve a little more into Draco's shattered emotional state in this chapter but I think it just ended up a bit too incoherent. It's not very fun to read. And It wasn't fun to write either. Oh, and it's emo, if you didn't notice. Just can't seem to keep away from that angst… -sigh-_

_Oh look. There's some more of it right there._

_P.S._

_The homophobic librarian obviously has no bearing in canon whatsoever. It's merely my tribute to my friend Nessa, to whom this actually happened. Never you mind the straight kids and their tonsil hockey at the next table over, but dear god, make sure the lesbo isn't allowed to put her arm around her girlfriend. There are children about._

_And people wonder why I'm angry all the time...)_


	10. Abandonment

**Disclaimer**: The author you have dialed (J.K. Rowling) is currently out of service. Press one for a questionable imitation of her work.

_(a/n: What? Late ass updates again? Oh noes!!_

_Uh…yeah. Presently I'm having housing difficulties of a Mom-throwing-me-out nature and haven't had the time or the means to update in a timely manner._ _But as my hospitable maternal grandma is feeding, housing, and providing me with an internet connection, you, dear readers, shan't be forced to go without for too long. I'm reliable like that.)_

* * *

Chapter 10: Abandonment

* * *

"Draco! Where are you?" I couldn't stop myself shouting it despite the fact that there obviously wasn't any point. Leave it to me to fall in love with such a complete—

The thought stopped me dead and the foot that had been hovering midstep over the ground in front of me fell absently back down again. I didn't move forward.

I _did_ love him, didn't I? I did, and I'd never even said it.

And now I might not ever get to.

"Idiot…" Tears coursed embarrassingly down my face in what felt like an ocean of melodramatic saltwater. "_Idiot_."

"Harry! We've been looking everywhere!" I sighed as two people I had no desire to deal with turned the corner to stare at me with irritatingly sincere concern.

"Lavender said she saw you down here bawling your eyes out…where's Malfoy?" Ron's eyes narrowed menacingly. "What did he do?"

"Nothing," I snapped, wiping at my eyes and trying to walk around them. Ron planted himself in front of me. "Get out of my way, Ron."

"Harry, what the hell is going on?"

"You're getting out of my way and I'm leaving."

"Can you just answer me?"

"Can _you _just leave me alone?" It was sounding a lot like a temper tantrum but I didn't care. At this point, I had enough problems.

"Of course not. We're your friends, aren't we?"

"Shut up and go _away_," I growled, but Ron gave me a stubborn glare and Hermione looked equally determined.

I looked at them. They looked at me.

"Draco's gone," I grumbled miserably. "Has been for hours.

"Gone?" Hermione inquired in a rare moment of confusion.

"He's chucked you, hasn't he? I'm going to punch his stupid face in, I swea—"

"He hasn't chucked me! He's just…he's just doing something very dangerous and stupid even though I told him not to and it'll be a bloody _miracle_ if he even comes back at all and I—I'm—"

"Oh god," Ron breathed with a sort of fascinated disgust. "You actually _love_ that idiot, don't you?"

"Yeah," I sniffed miserably.

"So," he sighed in horribly forced resignation, "what are you still standing around here for?"

OoOoOo

"Father? Where…" I stopped, deciding I'd rather not find him if at all possible. "Mother?" I tried in a quieter tone. "Mother, it's Draco…"

The manor was the darkest I'd ever seen it; I'd be astounded if there was a light on in the whole house. Light flared from the tip of my wand and I instantly wished it hadn't.

There was a dark stain of ominous crimson on the carpet. And I was standing in it.

I jumped back about a foot and knocked over something that sounded expensive, but then nearly everything around here was. "M-Mother?"

Still no answer. And apparently I'd developed a stutter.

"Draco? Draco, is that you?" The whisper was low and harsh and genderless. It could have been anyone. Mother or Father or—

"Harry, I'm going to _kill_ you!"

"Draco! I've been so—"

"Go _home_, Harry."

"But—"

"How _stupid_ are you? I told you not to come here!"

"No," he answered mildly. "You lied to me and tried to trick me into staying at school, but you never told me not to come here."

"Has it at any point occurred to you that I might've had a very good reason for that?"

"Because you love me?" Harry asked the floor quietly.

Angry as I was, I had to laugh. "Nox," I whispered to my wand, and smiled in the darkness. "Idiot. Did you come all the way here just for that?"

I could practically _hear_ him blushing. "Not _just_ that. I had to make sure you were…well…"

I put my shaking hands over his, pulling him close.

"You little moron. Of course I—"

"_Crucio._"

There's no describing what I felt after that except the hope that I'd never have to feel it again. Only one thing made it through the sharp rush of pain fogging my comprehension.

"Really, Draco," said my father in a tone of deep boredom. "The lengths you will go to to disgrace this family…"

OoOoOo

"Narcissa, where on earth do you suppose you're going?" Lucius Malfoy intoned coolly, standing impassive over the twitching body of his only child.

Draco's mother hurled herself across the room, ignoring her own injuries and shoving Harry aside. "Stop it! Lucius, stop, you're going to—"

"Narcissa, take your hands off that filthy traitorous little _faggot_ or I shall become very angry with you."

"Lucius, he's our _son_—"

"This—" he began caustically, punctuating the words with a vicious kick to Draco's ribs, "—is no son of mine."

"Leave him alone," Harry growled.

"Oh?" A wand instantly made its presence known at Harry's throat. "Something to say, Potter?"

"Harry, don't," Draco said in the hoarse whisper that was all he could manage. "Don't…"

"I said—I said leave him _alone_!"

"Hmm." He smiled unkindly and turned his wand on Draco instead. "A shame the Dark Lord has such strict rules about your murder. Fortunately he's placed no such restrictions on—"

"You will _not_," said Narcissa Malfoy fiercely, a pale and shaking hand holding her wand to her husband's heart, "touch my son."

* * *

_(a further a/n: aw…little tiny chapter…_

_Yeah. That whole not-really-having-a-house thing gets in my way more than you'd think, so this is pretty much barely even a chapter. I miss Marvin…-sniff-…)_


	11. Bereavement

**Disclaimer**: Wild K-SAN used MIMIC J.K. ROWLING!

It's not very effective…

_(A/N: Yay! Average length chapter!_

_Pardon me if the quality has taken a dive, but as my housemates now include small children I was nagged ceaselessly while writing every last word of this chapter. What the gods denied me in irritating younger siblings they have paid me back in irritating little cousins. _

_Don't ever live with a three-year-old, dear readers. _

_Ever.)_

* * *

Chapter 11: Bereavement

* * *

She was crying as she said it; even in the low light I could see the tears on her face.

"Narcissa?" He sounded so tragically confused I very nearly felt sorry for the bastard. If Draco ever…

I felt his hand in mine and immediately hated myself for even having the thought. We'd never be anything like them.

"Sixteen years, Lucius." Her voice was shaking as hard as the rest of her but she looked more determined than I'd ever seen anyone. "His whole life and I've never said one word. As long as it was only me. As long as our son—" She pushed her wand forward and Draco's father took a small step away from her. "You swore to me on the day he was born you'd never lay a hand on him. You _swore_."

"Narcissa—"

"Do you know what _I_ promised that day, Lucius?" She smiled joylessly and he took another clumsy step backward. "_I_ swore that if you ever did, I'd kill you myself."

Draco's grip on my hand tightened until I lost feeling in my fingers. _What?_ I mouthed soundlessly at him.

"Leave," he said in a voice that I could barely hear even from about half an inch away.

"Are you _mental_?" I whispered back furiously. "I'm not going anywhere without—"

He grabbed my collar with both hands, pulling my face close to his until there was barely a centimeter of space between our faces. "You really are so _stupid_, Harry. You know that, don't you? Why can't—" He struggled to pick himself up off the floor and swatted my hands away when I tried to help him. "Why can't you ever just do what I tell you to?"

OoOoOo

I turned away from him, trying to keep the light off my face. He'd seen enough of me crying for one day.

"You heard her," I said, unsure why we were still whispering when it was clear my parents were otherwise occupied. "She's going to kill him. Exactly how well do you suppose someone like her would fare in Azkaban?"

He looked at me for a long confused moment before I had to elbow him in the stomach to remind him not to shout at me.

"Draco, _no_. Don't even think—"

"Shut up and go home," I growled. "I mean it. I don't need you here for this."

"Idiot." The smallest hint of a smile played around his lips and I felt an urge to slap it off his face. "Of course you do."

"Harry, I swear if you don't get out of here _right now_—"

"You honestly expect me to leave you alone here?" He laughed very, very quietly. "And you call _me_ stupid…"

At this point I had no choice but ignore him. Father had backed halfway across the room by now, Mother shouting everything she'd been thinking from their wedding night until now, all with her wand about a millimeter away from making her a widow. I'd never seen my father quite so scared of anything.

"Mother," I said. Quietly. Reluctantly. But I said it. "Stop."

She turned to look at me, lowering her wand ever so slightly.

Father hit her very hard in the back of the head and she dropped to the ground, completely unconscious.

"Idiot woman," said Father coldly. He turned to me and smiled his deeply unsettling smile, stepping delicately over her body and raising his wand in my direction. "How very like her you are, Draco."

Harry tried to stand in front of me and I shoved him out of the way. It did not escape notice.

"How touching. Willing to _die_ for him, are you, Potter?"

He grabbed the hand I had been slowly inching toward the pocket where my wand was and twisted at the wrist until I heard it snap in an explosion of sharp, sense-dulling pain. My lip began to bleed in the spot I had been biting it for the last two minutes, but I didn't cry out.

"You can't," I spat out. "The Dark Lord wants Harry for himself." I managed a twisted smile. "You won't touch him. You wouldn't dare."

His grin didn't fade in the slightest. "Of course not." Harry was still trying to fight his way out from behind me and I kicked him in the shin. "Unlike you, Draco, I understand the concept of obedience. Unlike you, I know better than to so flagrantly disobey my master."

"_Master_?" I laughed as he hit me hard in the face, breaking my nose with the most nauseating noise I've ever heard. "You're not my master, you bloody maniac. You're my _father_."

"What a disrespectful little brat I've raised," he sighed in deep disappointment. "Perhaps this will teach you. _Crucio_!"

I braced myself for pain that didn't come. He knew me better than I thought.

"Stop! _Stop it_! You can't—"

"Draco, you really _must_ learn to pay attention," Father said calmly over the screams wrenching themselves from Harry's throat. "The Dark Lord has forbidden me to _kill_ Potter."

"Please," I said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. It was the hardest time I'd ever had saying anything. "Please don't hurt him anymore."

"Oh, Draco," he said with a smile. I let out the breath I'd been holding as he turned away from Harry. "Begging is so _very_ undignified. _Avada Keda_—"

"OI! DROP THE WAND AND BACK AWAY FROM THE KIDS, MALFOY!"

I caught a glimpse of someone with very pink hair hitting my father across the face before being temporarily blinded by every light in the house coming on at once.

"Tonks! You're not supposed to hit him!"

"Yeah. Bit unprofessional, isn't she? Oh look, my wand slipped."

"How clumsy of you. Allow me to assist—oh dear, it seems I have made a similar mistake!"

"Knock it off, you two…"

"Harry," I said in a low voice, "not to sound ungrateful, but what are these people doing in my house?"

OoOoOo

"You look like a bloody idiot when you cry, Malfoy," said Ron, giving Draco a foul look that melted away as he caught sight of his friend on the floor. "What did that freak father of yours do to him?" he snapped accusingly.

"I'm all right," said Harry weakly. "Really. What are you—is that Tonks? Ron, what's going on?"

"Well," said Ron, folding his arms and glaring at Draco, "We knew you wanted to rescue this git on your own, so we thought we'd at least give you half an hour for the sake of your dignity. We thought an Auror could help us find the place and Tonks seemed least likely to tell Mum…"

"And Fred and George?"

Hermione sighed. "I think they just wanted to see Malfoy get arrested."

"Is _that_ what she's doing?"

The flamboyantly colored Auror had gotten her foot lodged in an umbrella stand and was presently rolling on the floor trying to get it off while the twins debated the least conspicuous locations to begin bruising Malfoy's personage.

"Wotcher, Harry," she said brightly. "Can you give me a hand with this?"

Ron and Draco's eyes both drifted to the carpet as Harry crossed the room.

"You were really going to die for him, weren't you?" Ron muttered, shuffling his feet awkwardly.

"Of course. Wouldn't you?"

"He's my best mate," said Ron simply.

"You're a good friend, Ron," said Draco stiffly. "And thanks. For…saving my life and everything." He shook Ron's hand, blushing furiously, and walked away as fast as he could short of actually running.

"I saw that," said Harry with a small laugh when Draco was near enough to hear him. "He's not so bad, is he?"

Across the room, Ron was scowling and wiping his hand on his jeans.

"Right. Of course he isn't."

_

* * *

_

(a further a/n: ANGST!! DEAR GOD, THE ANGST!!

_Well, that was my idea for a title. Thank redbull07 for a much better one. See, I said I'd use it eventually…)_


	12. Endearment

**Disclaimer**: Stuff that is actually owned by me? In _my_ fanfic? Um…I think not.

_(a/n: Oh dear readers…I am so very, very sorry for what you are about to witness…_

_Remember the wee small chocolate bunny rabbits? Ye gods, are they ever back with a vengeance…_

_Erm…anyway…this particular disgrace to the written word is lovingly dedicated to __**Netrixie**__, the best and greatest person ever around, despite the fact that I normally don't do that sort of thing. I just find her to be awfully cool and wish I had a better chapter to offer in her honor._

_But I don't.)_

* * *

Chapter 12: Endearment

* * *

"In love?" Tonks gave me a look like I'd just told her I was pregnant. "With _him_?"

Draco stared moodily at the wall, swinging an arm around my shoulder and scowling. "No, with Dumbledore. I'm just the bloke he shags when he's got nothing better to do."

I elbowed him in the stomach. "Can you please shut up?"

"Whatever." The disturbingly clean hospital floor suddenly drew his attention and he didn't look up again.

Tonks laughed for about half a century. "S-Sorry," she choked out, "it's just..." Laugh. "…you and…" More laughing. "…Malfoy's son…" Huge, hysterical laughter. "…it's sort of…y'know…"

"Funny?" Draco suggested in a low, tense growl of a voice. "Isn't it just? Isn't it just absolutely fucking _hilarious?_"

"Draco—"

"Shut up," he snapped absently before whirling back to Tonks, his voice rising to a shout, "I'm sure my mother found it hysterical. I'm sure she was just_ exploding _with laughter while my Father was beating her unconscious. Tell you what, why don't you just go in and have a laugh at her right now? I'm sure she won't even—"

"Draco, shut _up_—"

"—mind. Not that it'd matter if she did, would it? Not that someone like you would give one goddamn what happens to a Malfoy, I suppose you think she deserves—"

"Shut your face, Malfoy," said Tonks in a dangerous tone, her face flushed with anger and her hair now a flaming scarlet.

"I will _not_—_gyah_!"

"D'you need to see how little 'people like me' care about you and your stupid family, Malfoy?" she growled, grabbing his collar and pulling him out of his chair with surprising strength. "Then get off your spoiled arse."

"Tonks, wha—" She gave me the scariest look I've ever seen on the face of a human and I didn't say another word, following in complete silence as she dragged Draco down the sterilized hallway.

"There," she said fiercely, throwing Draco into a wall several feet to the left of the nearest door. "D'you hear that?"

He fell momentarily silent, rubbing his neck at frowning intensely at Tonks. "Someone's…crying? And…" He looked up with a murderous expression. "This is my mother's room. What did you do to her , you—"

"Yeah. It is. But that's not your mum who's crying." She pushed the door open a bit. "It's mine."

"Wha—"

Tonks closed the door over again, glaring at Draco, who looked a mixture of guilty and confused. "Not that you'd even know, Malfoy, but that blubbering mess of a woman happens to be my mother."

Draco blinked at her, but couldn't manage to get a word in with Tonks this angry.

"My mum, who is sobbing her eyes out over a sister who hasn't talked to her in about a quarter century, which I'm willing to bet you couldn't be buggered to—"

"Language, Nymphadora!" chimed a sharp voice from inside the room. Tonks cringed.

"_Don't_ call me Nymphadora…"

"Get them out of here, Harry," Draco said, sighing deeply with one hand over his face. "I need to talk to my mother."

OoOoOo

"You're…in love with him," Mother said very slowly, rolling the words around in her mouth as though unsure she liked the taste.

"I think so." I looked at the floor, the ceiling, the chair, anything that wasn't my mother's face and the mess my father had made of it. She was more bruises than normal skin now, and as much as the healers had done for her, she didn't look the same.

"You _think_?" She laughed humorlessly. "Shouldn't you know by now?"

"I _do_ love him." I said, and she laughed again. "I do. It's just…I…"

She put her hand over mine, her pale, thin fingers folding over my own. She was still wearing her wedding ring. "Draco, you are nothing like that man, do you understand me?" Her arms closed around me and I felt about four years old. "Nothing like him."

"I know." My memory stubbornly replayed the image of hitting the boy I loved more than anything square in the face for no reason at all. "I know."

A mop of jet-black hair popped sudden into the room. "Draco? I—oh. Er. Sorry." Harry flushed adorably at our little mother-son moment and darted back out into the hall.

"We'll be back in the morning, Mother," I said before following him.

In the hall, Harry tried very hard to pretend he hadn't heard every word we'd said.

"So…did you…er…your mum is…er…"

"Come home with me," I interrupted, pulling him into an unoccupied room opposite Mother's so the entire population of England wouldn't hear us.

"What?"

"I've got permission to stay at home tonight. I'd…feel better if you were there."

He stared at me. "Are you insane? Your dad—"

"My father is being held on charges of assault and attempted murder. My mother can barely move on her own, and neither of them are coming home for quite a while. And right now the only person I want to see is you."

"But aren't you…"

"Harry, I really don't want talk about that," I said flatly.

"Draco, your dad tried to _kill_ you, I think you should—"

"Shut _up_!"

And he flinched.

"I wasn't going to hit you," I said very, very quietly.

"I-I know."

"I'd never."

"I know."

But I would, and we both tried not to remember that.

OoOoOo

"Harry, I _love_ you," Draco murmured in his ear, making Harry shiver slightly as Draco's arms folded around his waist.

Harry kicked him in the shin. "Don't."

"Hmph. You wanted to hear it badly enough before."

"We were_ alone _then, that's not the same—" He grabbed the wall behind him for support. Draco's hand was on his belt and he was smiling in the way he always did when one thing was about to lead to another. "D-Draco, what the_ hell_ are you doing?"

"Guess." Draco's breath fell hotly on the back of Harry's neck and Harry swallowed thickly, trying to peel his hands away with no success whatsoever.

"Sto—mmph!"

"Shh," he breathed sweetly with his hand over Harry's mouth. "Someone'll hear you."

"MMPH!"

"Are you going to shut up?" He was still smiling, but with the kind of cold, mocking falseness that was either nothing or exactly like him, depending who you asked.

"…mmph."

"Good boy." His mouth closed harshly over the other boy's, nothing like the sweet, considerate lover Harry remembered. For all his pretty words, there was no emotion, no compassion, no love at all.

"Draco, stop!" Harry breathed heavily, panting at Draco's touch, wanting it and hating it at the same time. "Let go, you're hurting me—"

"Do you always breathe like that when someone's hurting you?" His fingers traced down Harry's shirt front, undoing the buttons until it fluttered to the floor. He gave the bed a meaningful look and shoved Harry down gently onto the mattress when he made no move towards it.

"Draco, I don't want to—"

"You're such a liar," he said, his face lined with his father's unkind smile. Harry's back arched involuntarily as Draco's lips grazed his neck.

"N-no," Harry stammered in response. "Draco, you're scaring me. Just stop!"

"Stop saying that," Draco ordered.

"You're acting just like—"

"My father?" What little color he had drained from his face. He twisted out of Harry's arms and stood, pressing his forehead against the wall, his fingers spread over his eyes.

"No," Harry said immediately. "I was—I didn't mean—Draco, don't—"

"Put your clothes on and go back to school, Harry."

"Draco—"

"I said _go_!"

"Are you—?"

On one side of the door Draco proceed to slam in his face, Harry wondered what the hell had just happened. On the other, Draco wondered what the hell he'd just done.

_

* * *

_

(a further a/n: Gyah! Scary Draco!

_I know what you're thinking, and yes, I did go out of my way to make him creepy as hell in this chapter. I'm…not sure how I feel about this. Except that it sort of frightens me._

_Okay, it frightens me a lot._

_-shudder-_

_Man, I hate this chapter.)_


	13. Estrangement

**Disclaimer**: Your regularly scheduled disclaimer has been preempted to make more room for emo.

_(a/n: Seriously, one more chapter of this shit and I'm re-categorizing this story as angst.)_

* * *

Chapter 13: Estrangement

* * *

He was still there when I came back the next day.

"Harry?" he slurred groggily, one eye half-open and the other hidden beneath a disheveled layer of ice-blonde hair. "Didn't I tell you to leave?"

"That was seventeen hours ago, Draco."

He yawned majestically; even after a night asleep in a plastic chair, his clothes rumpled and his hair sticking up at angles that put my own to shame, he was still obscenely, effortlessly good-looking.

Unsmiling gray eyes met mine. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing, particularly. I just happen to love hospital waiting rooms."

He ignored the hand I offered him, hoisting himself out of his seat without looking at me. "You should go."

"Go? I've only just got here. Is your Mum…Draco? Draco, are you listening to me?"

He picked at the leaves of a potted plant, showing far more interest in it than our conversation. "Just go home, Harry. Please."

"You know I won't." One arm snaked around his waist and I rested my head on his shoulder as he tried to flinch away. "Draco—"

He caught my wrist in one hand and pushed me back with the other. "Don't."

"I'm not going to bite you. I just—"

"Well _don't_."

"Why are you being so—"

"Will you just bugger off?" he roared. I whipped my hand away from his and backed up until I hit a wall.

"All right! You don't have to bloody shout at me!"

"Obviously you can't get it through your thick skull otherwise!"

"Get _what_?"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean!"

"I don't!"

His hand flew past my head to land on the wall behind me with enough force to crack the plaster. "Why are you so keen on ending up like my mother?"

OoOoOo

He still didn't get it. I could see it in the way he looked at me, without fear, without caution, without the slightest bit of hesitation. He was still stupid enough to care about me.

He flinched as I lifted a hand to brush the hair from his eyes and immediately tried to pretend he hadn't. "You're just like her, Harry."

"What are you on about?" he muttered to the floor. Now he was the one avoiding my eyes.

"Why haven't you said anything about yesterday? You haven't—look at me, Harry—you haven't said one word to me or anyone else about what I did to you."

"Don't say it like that," Harry said softly, almost under his breath. "You didn't 'do' anything to me. You were just upset about—"

"I know." I didn't need to hear him or anyone else say it. I'd be more than happy to never hear my father mentioned again.

"And you didn't hurt me." He raised his eyes slightly, looking up at me through a curtain of raven hair.

"I could've. I wanted to." I held a hand to his cheek, wondering if he noticed how badly it was shaking. "Oh god, Harry, I wanted—"

"But you didn't."

It was the kind of thing that's a complete waste of time trying to explain to someone like Harry. He's honestly the most naïve person I've ever met.

"And what if I had?" I pressed.

"Draco…"

"Answer me! If I'd hurt you like he hurt her, would you still be here?"

He stared pensively at the ceiling, trying to choose whichever words would keep me from saying what we both knew was coming. "I…er…oh goddammit, Draco, what kind of stupid bloody question is that?" He shoved me away with all the force he could manage.

"Harry—"

"Oh, shut up! I know what you're going to say and I don't want to hear it, all right?"

"At least let me—"

"No!" He picked up the nearest object—a small, neglected fern—and threw it at me, missing by about seven feet.

"Harry, can you just listen to me for one—" He punched me in the stomach. "OW! Dammit, Harry, _stop that_!" I grabbed his wrists and held them over his head. He kicked me in the shin. "Oh for god's sake, stop being such a bloody _child_!"

He sniffed delicately, unable to wipe the tears from his eyes with me holding his arms still. "Let go of me, you arse."

"I love you. You know that."

"Yeah. So much you never want to see me again."

"What am I supposed to do?" He winced slightly; I was shouting and I didn't care. "How the _hell_ do you think I'd feel if you were the one in hospital? If I hurt you—"

"Right. Because this isn't hurting me at all."

All the anger flooded out of me in an instant. My grip on his arms softened and he twisted away from me. Not crying. Not speaking. Just…silent.

"Harry…I…I'm sorry…"

"Yeah," he said dryly. "So am I."

OoOoOo

"You are still such a child, Draco," Narcissa laughed sadly.

Draco leaned back against the dull, sterile walls of his mother's room and sighed. "You're not helping, Mother."

"Come here." Huffily he sat down on the bed beside her. She took up much less of it than a grown woman should have.

"Have you been eating?"

"Don't change the subject." She smiled weakly. "I know that look. You love him. So _what_ were you thinking?"

"I'd have expected you of all people to understand," Draco said in a low voice, not meeting her eyes.

"I understand what you _think_ you're doing," she said gently, lightly stroking the top of his head and making him feel like a toddler. "You think you're saving him. You think keeping away will keep him safe. Because you love him. Because you want him to be happy."

"But he _isn't_! He doesn't…he threw a plant at me, Mother!"

Narcissa bit back a laugh. "Well, what did you expect?"

"I expected…I expected…" he trailed off in exasperation. "It's not _fair_!" In his anger he could think of no other way to word it. "I've spent _sixteen years_ trying to be anything but like Father only to find _I can't bloody help it_. I love Harry and I'll never be able to do anything but make him hurt and he's still so _stupid_ he can't see I'll only—"

"Break his heart?"

Like the child she couldn't help seeing him as, Draco buried his face in his mother's chest and sobbed. "Oh, Draco," she whispered, closing her arms around him. "I think you've done that already."

* * *

_(a further a/n: Right, so does it help any to explain why I'm bring you the gift of emo for like thirty chapters in a row? The reason is thus:_

_In my last story, they broke up over one thing in the space of about eleven seconds, so this time I wanted to show a slower unraveling of their relationship, over an issue that a real couple might have and is a bit harder to resolve._

…_and I'm starting to wish I hadn't, because trust me, this shit is as depressing to write as it is to read. I wanna write fluff again…-sigh-…)_

_(a further, further a/n: Since **Netrixie **has infected me with the weird desire to offer tribute to those of whom I am fond, I belatedly dedicate this chapter to __**SomedayEngland**__ and the EIGHT MILLION REVIEWS she left me yesterday._

_See? Nice things happen when I get reviews.)_


	14. Maladjustment

**Disclaimer**: Secretly, J.K. Rowling really _does_ use all her free time to write slash of her own characters. But this isn't it.

_(a/n: Hey, didn't I used to update this on Saturdays? _

_Well…yes and no. Saturday is the last day before it's technically a "late" update (according to the crazy imaginary schedule that I have made up in my head), which pretty much just results in most of these chapters having been written on Saturday mornings after pancakes and a lot of red bull. So I'm not actually sure whether this update counts as early or late…and it's largely a pointless question, since I'm updating today whether that makes sense or not. Because if you haven't noticed by now, logic has no place in my universe._

_P.S._

_For no reason other than because I have a keyboard and your attention, this chapter is dedicated to __**Mokimo**__. I like her lots.)_

* * *

Chapter 14: Maladjustment

* * *

"For the last time, _nothing_ happened," I said over the deafening roar of the Great Hall at dinnertime. As usual people were staring at me and as usual I was ignoring it. "It's just…_over_, all right?"

"Yeah? Good bloody riddance then." Ron leaned over his plate, stabbing the air with his fork for emphasis. "I thought this was stupid right from the—"

Ginny hit him forcefully on the back of the head with a textbook. "Did you forget to bring your tact down to dinner with you, Ron? Don't mind him," she added, taking the empty seat next to mine, "He thinks he's helping."

"He's right. We were crap together anyway, weren't we?"

"Absolutely," she agreed instantly. I blinked at her in vague disbelief.

"Do you honestly think that?"

"If I tell you what I honestly think, you may start crying again, and frankly I haven't got a tissue on me."

I smiled half-heartedly but didn't respond.

"You all right?" she asked rhetorically.

I shrugged, but couldn't think of words to go with the gesture.

"Understandable." She propped her chin up with one hand and stared at me momentarily before announcing, "It doesn't last forever."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one who's been chucked by a bloke who's supposed to be your...I don't know...soulmate or something..." I blushed. It sounded idiotic when I said it out loud, so I kept talking like I hadn't. "...for reasons you don't really understand and yet are forced to...accept...anyway…" She cocked an eyebrow at me, half-smiling. "Wow. Walked right into that, didn't I?"

"Yeah." She smiled again and I wished with all my heart that she'd been the one I'd fallen in love with. "I'll forgive you, but only because I know you don't know any better."

I grinned awkwardly. "You know I still love you, Gin…just…more like an…"

"Older brother?" she finished. "Right. Because I haven't got enough of those." A small laugh escaped her. "Trust me, Harry, it's not _our_ relationship that needs to be worried over."

"Well you can't mean me and Draco's, because haven't got one."

"So your solution is…what? Ignore each other for the rest of your lives?"

I folded my arms. It sounded a lot stupider when she said it. "Well…"

"Look," said Ginny seriously, her brown eyes filled with a mixture of exasperation and concern, "there's nothing you can do to make yourself stop caring about someone. That's just not how it works. The most you can do is try to turn that feeling into something else."

"I…have no idea what that means."

She rolled her eyes. "Try being his friend, Harry. It's a lot easier than trying to make yourself hate him."

I looked across the great hall. The Slytherin table was decidedly Draco-less. "Looks like I'll have to find him first."

OoOoOo

Apparently, my friends are the sort of people who will beat you half to death and act like nothing happened.

"Well, look who's come to his senses," drawled Blaise infuriatingly as I crossed the common room with as much dignity as possible. I fought a very strong urge to throttle him with my bare hands.

"I _knew_ you'd be back," chattered Pansy uselessly. She was deeply lucky I had such a strong policy against hitting women. "I mean, everyone said you were—well—but I _knew_ you'd come round…eventually…" The torrent of annoyance slowed as I glared at her. "Er…Draco? You look a bit…er…"

"_Angry_? Why yes, Pansy, _stunning_ of you to notice, but yes, I am a bit miffed at the fact that my mother's in hospital, my father's about to be jailed, Harry won't speak to me—" the few people that dared to snicker at this instantly quieted under the force of the look I gave them "—not to mention the bruises I've still got from when _you_ _people_ decided to—"

Blaise put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. "You're embarrassing yourself, Draco. Why don't you just—"

"Why don't _you_ just stop touching me before I break your arm, Blaise?"

Blaise smirked and took a step back as Pansy flung her arms around my neck. "_Please_ don't fight again."

I pushed her away while touching her as little as possible and stomped wordlessly back out into the hallway, not bothering to stop Blaise following me.

"Draco, come back here." I ignored the voice echoing off the empty corridor walls until it was directly behind me.

"Exactly what part of 'bugger off' confuses you, Blaise?"

"I take it you're still mad at me."

I spun to face him. "What gave it away?"

"Look, I just thought you needed…reminding."

"Of _what?_"

"Of who your friends really are." He grinned the sort of grin that makes you want to punch someone until they haven't got any teeth left.

"I think I'd prefer friends who don't beat me up, thanks."

"To be fair,_ I_ didn't touch you." More grinning. I shoved my hands into my pockets so I wouldn't accidently turn his esophagus inside out. "And you've no idea how it pained me to see such a pretty face ruined."

I sighed. Not this again. "Blaise, we've been over this, I'm not—what are you doing?"

His hands fell on the wall behind me, one on either side of my head, giving me nowhere else to look.

And like the arse that he was, he kissed me.

OoOoOo

"I've told you before, Blaise, nothing is _ever_ going to happen between us," said Draco. His cheeks glowed faintly as he pushed the older boy away.

"What are you blushing for? Not like it's the first time."

Draco's blush deepened at the memory of the first and last time he'd ever had firewhiskey. "You'll never get me that drunk again."

Blaise smiled again. "You're going to tell me you honestly prefer that filth to a proper pureblood?"

"Don't talk about him like that."

The smile faded. "This whole…_slumming_ phase you've been in isn't funny anymore, Draco. Why can't you just stick to your own league for once?"

"Because my league's got people like you in it," Draco snapped stubbornly.

"You know that only makes me want it more..."

"Oh. Sorry," said a stiff voice from behind them.

No one moved. No one spoke. A silence of unspeakable magnitude descended as Blaise very slowly drew his lips away from a fervently blushing Draco and let his gaze fall on the interruption with a smirk of perverse satisfaction.

"Don't stop on my account," Harry growled in a low voice as he walked away.

* * *

_(a further a/n: Okay, so my idea of Blaise is in all likelihood almost entirely OOC, but given that he's got about four lines of dialogue in the entire series, there's really not much character for me to misinterpret. So I basically just warped him to my own twisted purpose. If you do not like this…go and write a fic in which that does not happen.)_


	15. Settlement

**Disclaimer**: When the Golden Gods of Yaoi sent me to personally see to the serious lack of boy porn in J.K.'s work, they told me not to worry about the copyright restrictions.

_(a/n: Well, dear readers, it's taken me about five chapters, but I've decided something._

_I'm sick of the angst._

_Seriously, that's enough with the emo already. This chapter may read weirdly in comparison with the festival of DARKNESS (yes, it does have to be in capitals) that I've been forcing on you of late, but I had about a billion times more fun writing this relatively emo-less chapter, so can't you just let it slide?_

_Please?__)_

* * *

Chapter 15: Settlement

* * *

"Harry, you don't understand—" he made a grab for my arm and missed. The sound of Zabini's low laughter was still roaring in my ears and if I so much as looked at Draco right now I'd murder him. "—slow _down_, I can't keep up with you when you're running—"

"That's the point!" I shouted, breaking into a sprint. "Just leave me alone, Malfoy!"

"_Malfoy?_" he panted back, already at least twenty feet behind me. "You can't be serious. Look, that was nothing!"

"If that's your idea of 'nothing'—"

"I mean it _meant_ nothing! _Less_ than nothing! Harry—_will you stop fucking running and listen to me_?"

"I_ have_ listened! I've _listened_ to the load of complete crap you've been telling me for the past three weeks. And a fat lot of good that did me!"

"_Crap_?" I stopped running and he stopped chasing me, his expression unreadable but his tone unmistakable. He was angrier at me than he'd been at the hospital. Angrier than the time he'd hit me even. It was the quiet, terrifying sort of angry he'd been at his father, so furious he couldn't even shout at me or, actually, do anything other than repeat what I'd said back at me in a completely horrible tone.

"Yes!" I said, though a great deal of the force had gone from my voice. "I can't believe you've got the bloody nerve to try and guilt trip me after I've just seen you with Zabini's tongue halfway to your esophagus! You told me you loved me and—and—"

And it is literally impossible to yell at someone who is looking at you the Draco was looking at me just then.

"And you don't think I do?" he asked quietly.

"Well, what am I supposed to think?" He was close enough to touch now, but I didn't dare.

"That's it, then?" His voice was entirely calm like it always was when he was angry beyond the normal range of human emotion. "You think I've just been messing about all this time? You think I said all that '_crap_' just to say it?" His eyes blazed into mine like some sort of indignant furnace for about half an hour and I felt myself start to blush for no very good reason. "You think I've ever said that to anyone else?"

At the moment the only thing I was thinking was that I had no idea how I'd ended up being the arsehole in this situation when he was the one snogging random blokes in hallways.

"But Zabini—"

"What about him?"

Apparently Draco suffered from some sort of short term memory loss. "You snogged him. About eight minutes ago."

"No. He snogged me, and I let him because it's easier than hitting him as hard as I'd have to to get him to stop."

It really shouldn't have had any effect on me. Obviously they'd kissed. I'd _seen_ them doing it. But somehow hearing him say it was a million times worse.

"Oh. Right." I could barely force out the words. "I should…go, then. Er. Goodbye." I wasn't crying. I just happened to be very interested in the ground. Lovely flooring this castle has.

I lifted a hand to wipe the…dust…out of my eyes, and he caught it in one of his, squeezing it gently until I had to either look at him or lose feeling in my entire arm. "…yes?" I mumbled stupidly because I couldn't think of anything else.

"So basically," he said in the same flat, unreadable tone, "what you want is for me to never snog anyone else ever again for the rest of my life?"

Since the honest answer was "yes", I didn't say anything.

His arms folded around me and I continued my definitely-not-crying into his chest. "Fine," he said into my ear. "I won't."

OoOoOo

I honestly don't understand how this happened. I'd already done the right thing, wrong as it felt at the time. I'd put both of us through all kinds of hell to save us all kinds of hell in the future, and yet somehow all this only resulted in me standing in the hallway with an armful of Harry Potter. Again.

Apparently, I was stuck with him.

"This is never going to work," I tried vaguely.

"Why can't it?"

"Because…because I'm not the sort of person you should be with."

"You'd go mental if I started dating someone else."

Fair point.

"I'll grow up just like my father," I warned instead.

"Draco, you could grow up just like Voldemort for all I care. I love you."

It was both the sweetest and stupidest thing I'd ever heard from anyone.

"You are insanely naïve, you know that?"

"And _you_ talk too bloody much," he said. Our eyes met only briefly before our mouths did as well, the light pressure of his lips against mine completely obliterating whatever feeble resistance I'd previously stood a chance of putting up.

"Phwoar" was the closest thing the English language I could manage by the time he finally pulled away, apparently possessed of the strange ability to completely fry my thought process when he felt like it. But then he was brushing my hands away and smiling sadly and I knew I wasn't going to like what he said next.

"…but if this is what you think you want, I'll let you have it."

I gave him a blank look. Right now, what I wanted involved a lot less clothes than we were currently wearing, and this didn't seem anything like it.

"Don't worry. I'll still be around when you've noticed how stupid you are."

My witty retort to this went something along the lines of "gwerfle" and was about all I managed before he walked off.

I spent a long time wondering why I didn't stop him.

OoOoOo

"I really just don't understand you two." Ginny said, shaking her head as she stared at her friend with a sort of pitying interest. "You love him. He loves you. So what's the problem again?"

"There isn't one, really," said Harry distractedly, trying to talk and lose shamefully at chess at the same. His bishop screamed tragically as Ron's knight smacked it rather violently across the board and he elaborated, "Draco just needs some time to himself, I think."

"And you're not worried about Zabini?"

Harry motioned frantically for her to shut up but Ron's head snapped up immediately. "Zabini? What's he got to do with anything?"

"Gee, I dunno, Ron, the whole snogging Malfoy thing seemed pretty—" Ginny arched her eyebrows, catching on far later than was useful. "You didn't tell him?"

"No. I though he might, you know, act exactly like this or something."

"He's been _cheating_ on you?" Ron shouted, clearly far more outraged than Harry himself.

"Not really," sighed Harry, a wasted effort as Ron was already well past the point of listening. "Look, I don't really want to go into it."

"I'm going to _kill_ him," grumbled Ron nonspecifically before stalking off, vaguely threatening everything he passed under his breath.

"Going to stop him?" Ginny asked, taking Ron's seat and fiddling absently with his chess pieces.

"Nope." Harry smiled a bit maliciously as he reset the board for a second game. "I'm sure he can manage."

_

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(a further a/n: Yes, that really is the end of the chapter…I really couldn't think of a proper one, so I just ended it in the middle of nowhere. I'm lazy like that.

_Anyway, you have now officially experienced the strange method I have adopted for the purposes of angst minimalization (which, if it is even a word, is not spelled like that at all). I figured that just because the subject matter is more angsty break-up related boringosity (well, if I'm making up words anyway…) doesn't mean I have to _write_ it with the broken rusty fountain pen of emo. So I didn't. If you enjoyed this, (or never, ever want me to do it again) why not leave me a friendly review (or even an unfriendly one if you like) and tell me so? Because honestly I've got nothing better to do than reply to them…)_


	16. Denouement

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Harry Potter. See below for an idea of what it might look like if I did, and some very good reasons for why I shouldn't.

_(a/n: As you can probably tell by the title (or not, if you don't know what the word "denouement" means (in which case, well, neither did I until I saw Clerks and looked it up) this story is at long, long last at an end. Which frankly at this point is fine by me because I've been writing the damn thing since January and it's now more than twice as long as I had originally planned it to be and…_

_Yeah, I'm just sick of it, basically. This being my second chapter fic for this pairing, I'm starting to consider it as a sort of sophomore slump type of situation and have therefore begun to direct my efforts at making my next fic suck less. As opposed to this one. So it doesn't. Suck less, I mean.)_

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Chapter 16: Denouement

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All things considered, he didn't last long.

"Harry!" said Lavender breathlessly, or at least I think that's what she said. It was a bit hard to tell with all the giggling. "There's someone outside for you!"

"The Fat Lady's told him to shove off about a hundred times," Pavarti threw in between fits of the most irritating laughter you can possibly imagine, "but he said he's not leaving until he talks to you!"

"It's _Draco Malfoy_," Lavender added as though worried I might've thought it was Father Christmas otherwise.

Ginny stifled a small laugh with her hand, staring back at me with mocking seriousness.

"Oh my. Whatever do you think he wants?" she asked innocently.

I shrugged, smirking thinly. "I can't imagine."

Every pair of eyes in the commonroom followed me when I stood. The snickering trailed me out into the hallway.

"Harry."

If he'd thought this was going to be a private conversation, he was sorely mistaken; Gryffindors aren't much for secrets and most of the house was hovering in a giggling crowd around us. My eyes suddenly glued themselves to the floor and my cheeks glowed red as I mumbled a vague greeting.

"I—erm…how've you been?"

I fought a smile. At least I was as good at making him forget English as he was at doing it to me. "Haven't done much of a life-changing nature in the last two hours, Draco."

"Right. Um. Of course not. I was—" he exhaled sharply, looking around at the people surrounding us in very obvious discomfort. "I was wondering if maybe—look, can you lot stop bloody laughing for eight seconds?" He gritted his teeth angrily and plowed on when the giggling showed no signs of stopping, "If you'd ever consider going out with me again!"

Over the "ooh"s and "aw"s and, of course, _giggling_, of which there was more than I'd ever been forced to hear in the entire rest of my life put together, I said the only thing that came to mind.

OoOoOo

"Took you long enough."

He folded his arms with a ridiculously self-satisfied smile he could only have learned from me.

"Two hours was too long?"

"You tell me." He launched himself into my arms despite the mortifying wave of jeering this produced from his housemates and kissed me full on the mouth.

"I missed that," I admitted, half-deaf from the squeals of every girl in Gryffindor house, "I missed _you_. I've just been—"

"A git?"

"_Confused_," I corrected, though he really wasn't far wrong. "I was…_confused_ about a lot of things, and…well, actually, a lot of this still confuses me, but I don't bloody care anymore." I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, and added while flushing uncontrollably, "you're the only thing I care about now."

His hand slipped into mine.

"Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else?" he said quietly over the ensuing laughter.

OoOoOo

The walk was directionless, silent, and very, very long. There was little to say that hadn't been said, but the silence was companionable rather than awkward and neither was especially sorry for it.

"I do love you, you know," said Draco at last, the words ringing unnaturally loud in contrast to the immense quiet of everything else. "I've never said it properly, have I? I was always angry, or wanted something, or…" he sighed vaguely. "I've been pretty awful, haven't I?"

"It's worse without you," replied Harry quietly.

"What's worse?"

"Everything."

Draco grinned, the genuine smile that only seemed to grace his face with its presence around The Boy Who Lived.

"Well, if it isn't the happy couple themselves. How sweet."

Draco's eyes narrowed, turning angrily on the source of the remark. "Blaise, I'm warning you right now—"

"Oh, I wouldn't _dream _of interrupting you and your disgusting little hobbies, Draco."

"Say that again," Draco growled. "Say _one more word_—"

"And you'll do what, exactly?" Blaise smirked and took a step forward. "Exactly how afraid do I need to be of you? Or is it your convict father I should be—"

"Draco, _no!" _The vice-like grip Harry had on his arm brought Draco to his senses, wondering exactly when his wand had ended up at Blaise's throat.

"Oh, didn't think I knew about that, did you? I'll give you your mother did an excellent job of keeping it quiet. But I expect she's used to that by now, isn't she?"

"Draco, _please_ don't do anything stupid—"

"Go on, listen to the little mongrel, Draco. Someone in your…_delicate position_ really can't afford to—"

"OI! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THREE THINK YOU'RE DOING?! NO DUELING IN THE BLOODY CORRIDORS, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO—_Harry?_"

Three heads simultaneously snapped to face the red-headed, freckled-faced interruption standing at the end of the hallway.

"And…Malfoy. Right. Ginny said you'd gone off together. She had to set off a dungbomb to stop Pavarti and Lavender following you. Er…what're you doing?"

"I'm building a sailboat, Weasley, what the hell does it look like?" snapped Draco, his wand still rested on Blaise's neck.

"Look, Malfoy, I'm a Prefect—"

"So am I."

"Yeah. And you're also breaking just about every rule I can think of, so _watch it_."

"Can't say I admire your taste in friends, Draco," smirked Blaise. Draco pressed his wand harder against his throat.

"Shut up. Stop talking right now or so help me—"

Carefully, Harry touched the hand holding Draco's wand and eased it out of his grasp. "You really don't want to do that, Draco."

"Yes I _do_. I won't, because you're asking me not to, but I _want_ to."

Blaise gave a low laugh as Draco took a step back to grasp Harry's hand in his own tense and sweating palm.

"Finally I hear sense from you, even it is for the sake of that miserable excuse for a—"

It was an interesting fact learned by all four boys present that Blaise Zabini screams like a small child when punched.

"Wow. He is _really _annoying," Ron observed, rubbing thoughtfully at the ridges of his knuckles, which were slightly red where he'd sunk them into Blaise's face.

Blaise lay melodramatically on the floor, whimpering and holding a hand to his bloodied and most likely broken nose. "You…hit me. You just—"

"Yeah. And I'll fucking well do it again if you say another word. Listen," he added to Harry and Draco, who'd been stunned into silence, "I've got to get this git to the hospital wing before he bleeds to death. Are you two all right on your own?"

"We'll manage."

"Right. Get _up_, Zabini, you idiot, you're getting the floor wet…see you later, Harry. " He gave Draco a small nod and went off down the hallway with a rather confused Blaise shuffling awkward along behind him, muttering quietly to himself, "…but no one _ever_ hits me…"

"Suppose I'm lucky he didn't do the same to you."

Draco raised an eyebrow and Harry noted for the first time the beginnings of a bruise around his left eye.

"Oh," said Harry in a small voice. "He…I'm sorry, Draco, he's a git…"

"I'd be angrier if I didn't know I deserved it," said Draco with a tiny smile. "I…explained things to him and he agreed to stop punching me if I agreed to be less of an idiot."

"You're still an idiot."

Draco grinned evilly, catching Harry in his arms and kissing him lightly on the mouth.

"Not in the hallway," Harry protested. "What if a teacher sees?"

"What are they going to do? Give us detention?"

Harry closed his eyes and allowed Draco deepen the kiss until it was practically obscene. _Well,_ he reasoned silently, _worse things have happened_.

_

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(a further a/n: Huh. Well, that was lame.

_Sorry. Endings are not my strong suit._

_Oh well. Reviews are loved as ever…_

_P.S._

_Seeing as I know you will all be simply DESOLATE (not) with nothing of mine to read, I'll just mention in passing I do in fact have a shiny new fic by the name of "Once" that will be up sometime around...my word, I've posted it today, haven't I? How that for coincidences?_

_Reading is making for happy tiem, yes?)_


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